Sir Ash's Conquest
by DarkPaladin000
Summary: Ash Ketchum finds himself in a new land with only his Pikachu. Here, he is forced to become a part of the politics of the region as he goes around challenging and taking territory from the corrupt Gym Leaders of the region, something he has to do if he ever wants to return home to Kanto. Loosely based off the series: The Keys to the Kingdom. Mild PokeShipping later.
1. VS Marley I

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or the Pokemon franchise. Like you didn't know that already, because if I did, this would be an actual game.  
**

 _Fifty-Five Years Ago in the region known as Galea...  
_

Another tear fell down the boy's cheek to join its comrades as his father repeated the same word that hurt him- that cut deeper into him more than the sharpest knife ever would.

"Failure," he said, an expression between disappointed and enraged on his face. "Your teacher has given up on you. She says you'll never be more than a mediocre Trainer."

"But-but- I try father!" the boy protested, his eyes now swelling with even more tears and his nose began to drip as well. "I do! I try so hard! But the other children somehow still-"

"Silence!" the father screamed. "I do not wish to listen to any more of your excuses. From tomorrow morning, you'll join me in tilling the fields along with your mother. You clearly have no future as a Pokemon Trainer and I will not waste any more of our hard-earned precious coin on your lessons. I always had high hopes for you, but perhaps the astrologer I asked when you were born was right- _you will never amount to anything special_."

With that final sentence the father left as rage engulfed the boy.

He had always wanted to become a great Pokemon Trainer. He had always tried as hard as possible. It was his dream.

He screamed. He screamed at the images of his classmates that swam before his eyes, at his father, but most especially, at his teacher.

He would show them. He would show them all, and prove how wrong they were.

He would run away. He would go far away, and train his Pokemon on his lonesome.

And then one day, one beautiful day, all of Galea would bow to him. All of Galea would acknowledge him as the greatest Pokemon Trainer who ever lived.

* * *

 _Galea, in what is assumed to be 'present day' according to their time..._

Ash Ketchum remembered the storm. Oh yes it was something hard to forget as it had come out of nowhere, while he tried to sail on a small rowboat leisurely near the Sevii Islands, alone except for his most loyal Pikachu. It was supposed to be a reprieve for the two of them from the stress and to help Ash forget the bitterness of losing yet another Kalos League had ended with Ash still not winning another Championship, and his head was heavy with thoughts regarding his failure and how he had been unable to win a single Championship after trying for so long. It had even occurred to him that perhaps, it was time to try something new. Maybe he just wasn't cut out to be the very best, like no one ever was.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice the storm until Pikachu pointed it out. He remembered trying to contact someone, anyone as the clouds spilled across the horizon like ink across a sheet, but his PokeNav and other devices on board couldn't get a signal. He remembered a titanic wave crashing down on him and the world going black…

And now, he woke up, clothes, oddly enough, perfectly dry and with the sound of the sea nothing but a distant memory. He got up to see he was in some sort of forest clearing, and the first thing that hit his head was to look for his trusted friend and ally.

This was taken care of with a loud, "Pika pii!" as Pikachu tackled him and smacked his head against the ground. That relieved most of the tension in his head, because as long as he had Pikachu with him, he knew that things couldn't be that bad.

He found his bag a few feet away, and it still had a spare set of clothes, and seven Pokeballs, though problematically, no food, as all of it had been stored on the boat which was nowhere to be found. Strangely enough, his bag and everything in it was also dry.

From the sky Ash could tell that it was sometime around noon, and Ash did find his Pokedex nearby, though his PokeNav had been smashed to pieces next to it. Smashed, and the pieces were wet- the only thing among his possession which showed some signs of having been in the storm. His Pokedex was dry and intact completely.

Something was messing with his Pokedex though, as all it showed was a strange blue screen with a message on it. Pikachu pressed a button and it began reading it out:

 _Ash Ketchum, we have called on you as an instrument in order to fulfill our will. You are currently in the land of Galea, which we believe, is unknown to you. Put quite simply, thirty-two years ago as time currently flows in Galea, a great calamity threatened to destroy our land. The Elite Four and the Gym Leaders were divided on how to settle the issue, with the Gym Leaders overthrowing the Elite Four, and sending Galea into a sort of limbo away from the rest of the world…_

 _There is little honor among thieves, but enough that the eight Gym Leaders agreed to share power, to a certain extent, and said that they would not interfere with each other's territory. Unfortunately, the people of Galea have suffered, due to increased taxes and brutal repression, and all contact with the rest of the world has been broken. As you may have guessed, the Gym Leaders need to be overthrown and the Elite Four restored._

 _You are currently in a region controlled by a Gym Leader named Marley, who controls Sandalwood Town, Sandalwood Forest, Deluge City, along with Routes 201, 202, 203, and part of 204 up till the ocean begins. He must be defeated, and his Gym Badge claimed by you, thereby making you the new ruler of his territory. The other Gym Leaders will protest, of course, but according to the treaty they have signed, will be unable to do anything about it._

"That's weird," Ash said. For one, the voice, or rather, voices sounded weird, as if there was interference from somewhere or the speaker was broken. Not to mention it didn't sound like any Pokedex's voice he had heard before, rather like four different people where talking at once.

"Pika pii?" Pikachu asked.

Ash didn't know what to make out of that. Sometimes even he couldn't understand what his Pikachu was saying. "It says here that they've increased taxes. Since when do Gym Leaders make taxes?" He then paused. "Come to think of it, I saw this movie about Kanto once. There was something called… the- oh yeah, the feudal system, in which the Elite Four Champion was the Emperor, and the Elite Four ruled below him, and at the local level there were the eight Gym Leaders who were like royalty, but that had fallen out of Kanto around three hundred years ago."

"Pi pii," Pikachu muttered, not for the first time wondering why Ash didn't seem to read anything or pay more attention to things.

Suddenly, Ash's stomach rumbled, and so did Pikachu's. "How long were we out?" Ash asked.

Pikachu shook his head.

"My Pokedex isn't working," Ash muttered, as it was stuck on that same weird message. "Maybe I should try turning it off and then turning it on again…"

That didn't work, but they did manage to find a tree with apples ripening on it, and the two decided to help themselves.

They were each munching their way through their third apples when a voice shouted at them. "Thieves! Wait up!"

A boy about Ash's age with dark green hair and eyes, but wearing what appeared to be some sort of tattered blue school uniform and with a large backpack filled with firewood suddenly appeared through the woods. "Thief!" he shouted. "Okay, you're not going to get away with this!"

"But, wait-" Ash said. Pikachu tried guiltily hiding the apple it was munching on. "We didn't know honest! Wait, I think I have some cash on hand so maybe if you'd just-"

"I got no time for your lies!" the guy shouted. He took out a Pokeball and sent out a Pidgey. "Time for you to pay!"

"Well if it's a battle you want," Ash said, "Pikachu! Use Thunderbolt!"

Pikachu did indeed use Thunderbolt, and the Pidgey fainted, thus ending perhaps the most anti-climatic battle Ash had ever fought.

"Whoa!" the guy said. "You're way stronger than anyone I've ever met."

"So, I'm sorry about taking your apples," Ash said. He began rummaging in his bag, looking for where he kept his money. "How much do you want for them?"

"Um, actually, the apples don't belong to me," the guy said. "They belong to Lord Marley, you know very well what that means..."

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. This was originally an idea for a game I thought would look cool, but Pokemon Uranium clearly shows that that isn't going to go and end well, and I wouldn't be able to make a game anyway. So, I took it as a story instead. This is based slightly after the book series the _Keys to the Kingdom_ and if you have read it, you'll notice some similarities. This will feature AshxMisty a bit, but not too seriously, and that is going to be a long ways in.  
**

 **This starts after Ash loses the Kalos Championship. I know he won't have a PokeNav, but I've included it anyway. Also, I know Ash won the Orange League, but I don't really think of it as an official Championship though.  
**

 **Also, if you're confused as to why I wrote that it is 'present day according to their time' that's because time between Galea and the rest of the world moves differently. It will be explained later. If you're wondering, the photo for this fanfic is a map of Galea. I originally drew it with hand but it didn't come up good, so I made a very, very, rough one using GIMP that you see. As you can tell, it is far too small and I don't know how to paste a bigger one. Don't worry, I won't rely on it since I know no one can read it.  
**

 **Do please review, and/or favorite if you liked this.**


	2. VS Marley II

**A/N: So, I would just like to thank Farla first of all. To answer your comments, I would first like to say that it was great getting such an in-depth review of my work, because seriously, in all my time here no one has ever bothered to go into so much detail like you have. I've kept some of your points in mind.  
**

 **I will however, completely and utterly disagree about what you said about capitalizing the names of Pokemon. In the video games, which are the real original media about Pokemon, a Pokemon's name is always capitalized, even if you're talking about one as a member of a species, and I mean also in Pokemon X and not the old ones where everything was in caps lock. Even Pokemon, the official site, always uses the name of a Pokemon species with a capital letter even when referring to them in hordes, in which case a normal species of animal would be given a lowercase letter, and also on Bulbapedia and other sites. I agree with you in that it doesn't really make sense, but the plural of Pokemon is just Pokemon so it clearly doesn't always follows all the rules regarding common grammar. Like that, 'surf' is not always capitalized, but the move, Surf, will be, at least in this fanfic, and I'm sorry if that is going to make anyone's head implode, but that's just really how it is going to be.**

 **Again, I'd like to thank Farla again for that review, and I hope that you continue to read what I write and continue to comment on it with such zeal.**

"My name's Gulliver," the boy wearing the dirty uniform said.

"I'm Ash Ketchum," Ash said.

"Wait, you have a last name?" Gulliver said. He then immediately began bowing before Ash. "Oh, Lord Ketchum, Sir Ketchum, whichever it is, I'm so sorry that I ever accused you of stealing." To himself, it seemed, he added, "Of course he was a big ol' nob or something, with the way he fought, and his odd clothes…"

"Um, no it isn't anything like that," Ash said. "You see, I'm not from around here. I come from Pallet Town, in a place called Kanto. Have you ever heard of it?"

"Wait, you meant that Kanto?" Gulliver asked while eyeing Ash suspiciously. "That land beyond the sea?"

Ash had a feeling that Gulliver was sure that he was lying, but didn't want to outright say so out of fear of punishment or whatever.

"I'm serious!" Ash said. Pikachu also nodded. He took out various stuff he had, including some photographs of Kanto. "I was riding a boat when a storm hit, and before I knew it I ended up here."

Gulliver still looked unconvinced. "Well, if yous say so. So, what is the House of Ketchum famous for?"

"Umm, there really is no 'House of Ketchum,'" Ash said. "Wait a minute, there's that message-" Ash then showed Gulliver the message in the Pokedex.

"Huh," Gulliver said. "Well, I don't really know much about what happened either. It was long time ago and I just mainly do small odd jobs here and there..."

Ash then accidentally let his bag slip, and the contents fell out, including several Pokeballs.

"Whoa," Gulliver said. "You have actual Pokeballs?"

"Yeah, don't you?" Ash asked as he picked them up.

"No," Gulliver said. "Don't you know that the laws passed by the Court of Gym Leaders forbids unauthorized selling and buying of Pokeballs, as well as Pokemon battles of any kind not approved by them?" He then gulped. "But then I just did a Pokemon battle didn't I? And you ain't a thief, are ya? Oh dear me, you're not going to report me, are ya?"

"No," Ash said weakly. "Look, I said this before, I'm not some sort of super high-up inspector or something."

"Alright, alright," Gulliver replied. "Okay then. I guess I believe you then... it does kind of explain your weird clothes and all."

"Do you have any idea how to fix my Pokedex?" Ash asked, ignoring the comment about his clothes. "It won't show anything except for that message."

Gulliver scratched his chin. After a while, he said, "Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?"

Ash and Pikachu both did an 'anime fall' at this. "Yes," Ash managed to get out. "Say, why are Pokeballs and battles banned?"

"Oh," Gulliver said, "that's to prevent excessive catching from harming Pokemon in their natural habitats an' disturbing the ecosystem, and there's a belief that Pokemon battlin' is cruel to Pokemon."

"Wow," Arthur said as he sat down near the tree. "I have a friend who was called King Plasma N, or really just N- but hey, he wasn't a real king or anything so you can stop bowing! He'd be happy to hear that."

Gulliver shook his head. "That's all just a cover. Really, the Gym Leaders don't no trainers strong enough to defeat them to come up." He then brightened. "But you look real powerful and all. I think you could take on Marley!"

"Actually, I just want to get back home first," Ash said. He was not one to run away from a Pokemon Battle or a challenge, but the thing was that he didn't know how long he'd been gone, and was sure that his Mom, and Professor Oak, and the rest of his friends and Pokemon must have been worried about him.

"Back to Kanto?" Gulliver asked. "Sorry, but as far as I know, no one in Galea can leave. Not by sea, or teleportation, or anythin' else."

"But I got here somehow, didn't I?" Ash asked. "Shouldn't there also be a way for me to get out, too?"

Gulliver scratched his chin again. "When you say it that way, it does sort of make sense."

Just then though, someone burst in on them. It was a rather tall woman with hair that was also green, but it was closer to the color of damp seaweed rather than Gulliver's emerald green. Also noticeable was she had on a sort of silver uniform with what looked like golden buttons and overall looked considerably nicer than Gulliver's uniform. "Boy! Where have you been all this time?"

"Sorry ma'am," Gulliver said and immediately prostrated himself like people in old samurai movies that Ash had seen his mother watch. "I was just walkin' along when I saw this person who was eating on some of those apples. I then tried to stop him, but his Pikachu is really powerful."

The woman then blinked, looking at Ash, and then Pikachu. She then flipped through a small book she had and then she smiled. "Yes, that thing is not native to this region. I'm afraid Marley, our Gym Leader, and ruler of this territory, will be taking that for himself."

"Wait, you can't just do that!" Ash retorted. "That's my Pokemon!"

"Actually, she can," Gulliver said. "The Gym Leaders can do whatever they want in their own territory, take taxes, seize property, pass laws, and imprison people. The answer to no one... except for the Four Heavenly Kings."

"Four Heavenly Kings?" Ash asked.

"Um, the Elite Four," Gulliver said as if this should have been obvious.

"But I thought you'd said that they'd been overthrown?" Ash asked.

"Exactly," Gulliver replied.

"Well, well," the woman said, who was reminding Ash of Jessie a lot, "if you don't want to hand it over, I can always take it from you."

She sent out a Houndoom. However, Ash noticed that something seemed weird about it, namely, the fact that its paws seemed to be too small for its body, giving it the appearance that it was sick or had some sort of skeletal disorder.

It was apparently not very good at battling either, as Pikachu dispatched it with a Thunderbolt as easily it had done with Gulliver's Pidgey.

The next Pokemon, a Kirlia, quickly met the same fate. Ash noticed that its legs were way too small and that its hair was grey instead of green for some reason.

The woman seemed unable to believe it. "But how? That Pikachu's been trained… and that's not allowed. Curse it all, I'll be back with more!"

She ran off, and Gulliver stared at Ash, speechless. "That was amazing! I've wanted to do that for ages! Though she _is_ going to come back with reinforcements, so we should probably get a move on."

"We?" Arthur asked, confused.

"Yeah, we," Gulliver said. "I mean, if you're going to go and challenge Marley, I want in on the fun. I mean, I'm probably dead someway or the other if they catch you too- they'll figure out that I'm your accomplice or somewhat, so I might as well join in! I mean, the guy makes us work for hours and ends up taking all our produce and stuff. That person you met, was Elizabeth, an overseer, and there'll be more of them. What you gots to do is take Marley's Gym Badge."

"But I have gym badges," Ash protested, and showed them to Gulliver. He still had his from his journey in Kalos. They were a reminder of all that he had accomplished... and also of his failure, despite all those years, to win a Championship.

Gulliver scratched his head. "They don't look like Gym Badges. Aren't they supposed to glow with power and radiance or something?"

"Um, what?" Ash asked as his Pokedex began beeping and there was a new entry there.

 _There are only eight Gym Badges in Galea, one for each Gym Leader. Each of them is a special, unique gem which carries power over the Pokemon and even the elements in its region, even giving some special powers to the Gym Leaders themselves. What you're currently calling and carrying 'badges' seem to be little more than some colored stones without any real power. Take a Gym Leader's Badge, and you've taken their territory.  
_

"How do I get them?" Ash asked. Again, the voices speaking the entry seemed to be far away and soft, with crackling in between.

 _You must simply defeat them in a Pokemon Battle, because they can neither be taken by force nor stolen from their owners. They each have special properties, and are tied to the land that they control, giving those that wield one considerable power even without their Pokemon on the very forces of nature itself._

 _Power is never without price however, and though the badges are powerful, at the same time, they mean that the Gym Leaders who use them are constrained by ancient laws, and will have to accept your challenge to a fight if you challenge them. They have of course, undertaken several measures to prevent any challengers from appearing, but you_ _are free to challenge them and must defeat Marley if you want his Badge._

The message ended there.

Ash frowned. "I don't know how... first of all, who are you? And where are you sending this from? Why did you pick me?"

The Pokedex remained unresponsive. It had answered his question before, so this clearly meant that whoever was talking to him through it could hear him, but Ash didn't get an answer to any more of his questions. It was quite frustrating, and he almost smashed his Pokedex in anger before his Pikachu tugged on his sleeve and snapped him out of it.

Ash realized though that if he was going to battle with Marley, he was going to need some more Pokemon.

 **A/N: And that ends this. It occurs to me that it is really difficult to describe how Pokemon characters look like, and when I try describing any of them and comparing them to how they actually look like, and how I would think of them if I hadn't seen them, they seem to have no connection at all.**

 **Also, feudal lords, or the Daimyo in ancient Japan did have the rights mentioned above, at times taxes were so high that the peasants were expected to give all of their crop over to the feudal lord, and in return the lord 'might' give some back as a rebate, and having a last name was also considered a big deal in earlier times in Japan. The Elite Four's Japanese name literally translates to 'Four Heavenly Kings' which I thought was appropriate given that they're actually acting as kings here. Before anyone complains, it is perfectly alright to capitalize that if that is their actual title.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading, and I do appreciate reviews as always. I'd just like to add one last thing, in this story, it might be more important to pay attention to what wasn't said rather than what was.**


	3. VS Marley III

**A/N: So, thank you Fenrir's Phantom for that review, and I do plan to continue this if time allows, by the way, is your name based off the Yu-Gi-Oh! card Fenrir?**

While Ash was busy trying to figure out his next move, the Gym Leader in question, one of the eight treacherous Gym Leaders, Marley, was lounging around in his headquarters in Deluge City, so named because of the floods that used to come in ancient times when it rained too much.

Of course, with the Gym Leaders now controlling much of the weather all across Galea using their Badges- a surprising perk they realized they had as Galea was separated due to spatial barriers, rain in Deluge City was never too much. And it was never too much elsewhere either, and it always obeyed strict patterns laid down by the eight Gym Leaders, necessary of course, to keep the harvests good, as they could no longer rely on foreign aid in case of a crop failure.

Out of habit, Marley took out his Gym Badge, which featured two swords crossed on a shield, the Irresolute Badge, which shined with an unearthly aura. Anyone who looked at it would feel a strange tingling all across their body and an urge to bow down and submit to the one who held it. Marley could feel its power crawl across his skin, and knew, that if he wanted to, could command any of the Pokemon in his area, and even the wind, air, and land to some extent if he wanted to.

It was only natural to be expected, that since he had such great power with his Badge, that there were always those out to get it from him. He, along with most of the other seven, had taken precautionary measures against that. They had banned Pokemon training and restricted buying of Pokeballs, as well as forcefully seizing the strongest Pokemon ensuring that no challenger would ever appear strong enough to usurp their thrones from them.

Marley's followers, who would have been called his samurai in an earlier time, who were allowed to raise and train Pokemon, had to first agree never to challenge him. As for the other Gym Leaders, they were bound by their truce, and had agreed to not challenge each other or to send their servants to do so for them.

In short, there was no one in Galea capable of challenging the eight Gym Leaders, especially with the Elite Four gone. Galea was theirs to do with as they pleased.

Marley himself, for that matter, was a handsome young man looking to be in his twenties, who was dressed up in a fine suit like the CEO of some multinational corporation rather than a traditional feudal lord.

Oddly enough to someone who would be an outsider, Marley had looked like a young man in his twenties for the last thirty-two years since he had seized power.

It was then that his phone began to ring. Marley stifled a yawn, to be honest, his entire rule was rather bo- _ring_ and many of his officers would agree. Nothing of interest really happened and the Marley had long since excused himself from being involved in the monotonous governing of his realm, leaving the bulk of it to his officials. They were to only consult him on important matters- matters that never really seemed to end and that he usually preferred to kick down the road for later.

The phone, itself, would have been a rather standard device anywhere else in the world, but was an exclusive luxury in Galea. Galea had always been slow to adapt to change, while it had embraced many of the new technologies of the world, unlike in other regions where feudal rights had become a part of textbooks, the Gym Leaders of Galea had been slow to let go of their ages-old rights and privileges, mainly due to the nature of their Gym Badges. Not to mention that while they did not know it, although thirty-two years had passed in Galea since the barrier had been erected, fifty years had passed in the outside world, making many technologies in Galea outdated with their outside counterparts.

Marley picked up the phone to see a rather lovely looking woman with electric blue hair and eyes the color of the sea, wearing what seemed to be an impossibly regal and complex kimono with a tiara of gold and diamonds keeping her hair from falling all over her face.

In other words, she didn't look a day older than how she had looked all those thirty-two years earlier. She was the seventh Gym Leader, Selena.

"I have some news," Selena said. "There has been an unexpected storm somewhere off the coast."

"There are no unexpected storms," Marley said.

"This one was," Selena said with disdain. "And this could very possibly be a tactic of the Elite Four to-"

"Oh-" Marley said with a groan. "Not again. What is it with you Selena? You're the only one of us who seems to constantly think that the Elite Four are behind every tiny thing that happens. There was that time when you were sure there was an oddly shaped cloud following you around the place. Okay, _fine_ , there was an unexpected storm, but that could have been due to some odd variable of us meddling or something we haven't accounted for."

Selena did not take to this kindly. "The storm was not just unexpected, it came out from beyond our spatial-temporal barrier. I'm beginning to worry that it is weakening."

That, Marley had to admit, was a problem he could care about. "So what would you have me do? Clearly, the barriers are a matter for His Majesty the Emperor to worry about. Was he not the one who had spearheaded their creation in the first place?"

"His Majesty-" Selena said those two words with a venom people generally reserved for thieves and murderers, "apparently has better things to do. The storm ended near your territory, and anyone, or anything from outside could have come there."

Marley yawned. "Get to the point already."

"I want you to search your territory to see if there is anything out of the ordinary," she said.

"Meh," Marley said. He slid in his chair into a more relaxing position.

"What?"

"Meh," Marley repeated. "It just seems like so much work, you know."

Selena looked ready to erupt. "You do realize that you're the first Gym Leader- someone hardly capable of battling- and I am commanding you to do so!"

Marley bolted himself upright in rage. It was no secret that the eight Gym Leaders loathed each other and that only a common enemy could unite them, which was why it was good that the Accord forbade war between the Gym Leaders or else there probably would have been one every week. " _Commanding_ me? You dare issue orders to _me_? We are all equal, in case you've forgotten the various provisions in the Accord we drafted after ridding ourselves of the Four Heavenly Kings, stating that we would all rule with none above the other, and His Majesty would merely be _primus inter pares_. I may be one of the weakest Gym Leaders when it comes to battling, but I have as much rights as any of you within my territory."

"And I assume you don't want to lose them. Think! If that storm brought in someone from outside, they could challenge you for your Badge," Selena snarled, the features of anger contrasting with the otherwise perfect nature of her face. "So start looking."

She cut the telephone off, which meant that she, of course, had the psychological advantage there.

Marley had to admit that she had said one thing that truly stung, that he was not very good at battling and hence was the butt of many jokes due to that among the others. It was true, and to be honest, he should have been training in his spare time, but training was just so much _work_.

Instead, he preferred using his power, the power of the Irresolute Badge, which was able to evolve any Pokemon, regardless of training or requirement of evolution. After all, evolved Pokemon were always better and stronger, and there were only the tiniest (in Marley's opinion) of side effects, for example the Pokemon seeming weaker or having disproportionate limbs occasionally. But it was all well and dandy for Marley and he didn't care about such small side effects.

Just then, he was interrupted by his right-hand man, Mr. Jennings, who had served him for many years and was now approaching retirement. He was the one entrusted with most of the day-to-day working of Marley's territory, and would not have disturbed him if something wasn't seriously amiss.

"We have a situation, Milord," he said after a bow. "Near the Sandalwood Forest, an overseer encountered a certain trainer with a Pikachu."

"A Pikachu! But those don't exist in Sandalwood Forest."

"Indeed," Mr. Jennings said. "An overseer engaged the Trainer, but was quickly overcome, describing him as a boy no older than twelve, wearing odd clothes."

Marley slowly put two and two together. "Jennings, I want you to find that boy and bring him to me. Put in all the soldiers you want, but I want him here, before me."

Mr. Jennings was surprised, but didn't say anything. "As you wish, Milord."

Marley realized that he may just have a battle on his hands and so a bit of training would have been good to prepare. But then, it occurred to him just how much _effort_ that would take, and after all, he was sure that his subordinates would find the intruder.

So then Marley reclined in his seat and took a nap.

 **A/N: I'm sorry if this got a bit too into politics and not enough into battling with Ash and all, of which we'll see more in a later chapter. I wanted to explore the Gym Leaders a bit. Primus inter pares translates to 'first among equals' if some of you were wondering.  
**

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked.**


	4. VS Marley IV

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows guys! Fenrir's Phantom, I was talking about the card Fenrir from Yu-Gi-Oh! (the trading card game, I don't know if you've heard of it. I had one and it appeared as a some sort of wolf. I guess it must have been based on Norse Mythology though, but all I know of of Norse Mythology is from watching the various Avengers movies.)**

 **Guest, thank you, and I agree that the chapters are a bit shorter than what I usually write for my other fanfics, but I do make sure that they're at least 1,000 words per chapter, anything shorter is probably something I wouldn't want to read either. Currently I usually go for around 2,000 per chapter, but I also kind of want to update this fanfic regularly, once a week minimum, so I think we'll have to deal with shorter chapters, of around 1,200 to 1,300 words (excluding the Author's Note). If it** **really annoys all of you that much, I can make them longer by merging them, but that will mean slower updates.**

Ash didn't care if he was in a strange land where there were still lords and kings. He didn't care that much that he had no way to contact the outside world, or that he didn't have any of his Pokemon except his Pikachu.

What he did know, was that if anyone wanted to take Pikachu from him, they were going to have to go through _him_ first. Hopefully, Elizabeth's Pokemon were a good indicator of how strong everyone was here, because otherwise he was going to have a problem with only Pikachu.

As both he and Gulliver were running through Sandalwood Forest, Ash was quite sincerely wishing that he had his Charizard with him, so that he could just fly over the treetops, and because it was one of- if not the strongest Pokemon he had ever had.

That said, the first thing that he settled his mind on was getting a Flying type. He saw a flock of Spearow, surrounded by a few Fearow.

It almost unsettled him when a single Thunderbolt was enough to send them crashing to the ground.

Ash had vivid memories of the first time he had attempted to catch a Spearow, and how that had almost ended up with him losing Pikachu while he raced away on his bicycle, being chased by the herd. How times had changed. He assumed that his Pikachu was much stronger now.

Of course, what Ash did not know was that most of the Pokemon were just very weak, not used to having Trainers battling them- or trying to catch them.

He took a moment to survey the flock, which had been knocked out. He took out a Pokeball, and caught one of the Spearow.

"Why didn't you take the Fearow?" Gulliver asked, who had been panting while running behind Ash and trying to keep up with him. For some reason he hadn't ditched his backpack and the firewood he was gathering; apparently he thought it would be useful.

"There's something wrong with the Fearow," Ash said. He may not have been the most observant person, but even he could tell that there was something off with the Fearow in the flock. Their beaks seemed to be a paler shade then they should've been, and their wings too small. Even Pikachu began looking at the Fearow sadly as if he was pitying them. "Do you know why that is?"

"Well, I think it is mainly because of Lord Marley's- I mean, Marley's, Gym Badge," Gulliver said. "I've heard he can make Pokemon evolve using it, regardless of whether they're ready or not."

"Why?" Ash asked. He had seen a machine much like that, made by Team Rocket, and it had caused a lot of Pokemon a lot of pain while using it.

"Oh, that's because this part of Galea controlled by him doesn't have many strong Pokemon," Gulliver said. "And not having many strong Pokemon means that there really isn't any fast way to train, least that's what they say. And the Gym Leader doesn't really have any patience for training against weaker Pokemon for hours on end, so he just evolves his and some of the wild ones to make it slightly easier. But then they kind of end up like that."

"That's messed up," Ash said. He took another look at the Fearow, and noticed many other things, like how one of its legs were shorter than the other, and how the muscles in its chests seemed to be underdeveloped. Pikachu began making some angry noises. "I remember Professor Rowan telling me that Pokemon released some kind of energy on evolving. Come to think of it, they evolve when they have enough energy through battling experience... so that would mean that, if you tried to evolve them before they were ready, they wouldn't have enough energy to... well, I mean they get bigger don't they? So they wouldn't be able to grow properly, at least I think so."

"Yeah, but no one speaks out against it," Gulliver said.

"By the way," Arthur said, "Do you know where Marley's supposed to be?"

"Deluge City," Gulliver said. ""cept I've never been there- I'm not allowed to go further than what I'm assigned too, but it is supposed to be just outside Sandalwood Town past route 203. He has a big sort of mansion there, at least that's what some of my friends told me." He then paused, horrified. "Oh dear, my friends! If they find out what I did, they're probably watching them or somethin'. Or interrogating 'em."

"What does that involve?" Ash asked nonchalantly. He couldn't see why Gulliver was so upset. "A cup of coffee and some polite questions?"

"More like a cup of sodium thiopental and a few electric shocks from an Elektrike," Gulliver said darkly.

"Sorry," Ash said. He hadn't meant to come out as being insensitive, he just had a hard time taking things seriously in general, and it was still so odd to hear about people so… cruel. Not even Team Rocket, or any of the other teams, went to such lengths as these Gym Leaders were going, and at the very least, Team Rocket were considered criminals unlike these Gym Leaders who appeared to be the people who made up the government. These guys just seemed to be in a totally different league of evil. Ash just hadn't assumed that Gulliver's friends were going to be _tortured_. That was just... well, it was something quite beyond whatever he had seen.

"It's alright," Gulliver said. "They probably won't do 'em any permanent harm. And it isn't like you wanted to be dragged into this anyway."

"No," Ash said, but at the same time something in him was saying that he just couldn't stand by while the Gym Leaders got away with this.

"Say, Ash," Gulliver said. "Do you really want to beat Marley and become ruler of this place? You kind of don't seem to be on track with the whole idea..."

"I just want to go back home," Ash admitted, slightly ashamed at himself, but to be honest, if a way came for him to go back home and forget about all this, he'd probably take it. His mom was probably worried sick about him, as well as his other friends. But would he really just abandon Gulliver to his fate?

"I can't blame ya," Gulliver said. "Your home sounds a lot better than this place." But Ash could tell that he was disappointed at his answer, the kind of disappointed you get when a friend lets you down. It then occurred to him that if he left, Gulliver was probably going to be caught and punished… maybe even sent to jail (he hadn't heard of any, but with the way these Gym Leaders acted, he didn't doubt that they existed in some form or the other) or perhaps even executed.

"But I don't have any way to do that for now," Ash added. "And I don't think there's anyway for me to go back, at least, until I can figure something out. So until then, you've got my help in taking him down." Pikachu balled up his fists in agreement.

That seemed to cheer Gulliver up. "That's great!"

"I just need to start training my Spearow now," Ash said. He sent it out, but of course, it was still fainted. "Oh, I forgot. Where's the nearest Pokemon Center here?"

"Pokemon Center?" Gulliver asked, surprised. "They'd never let you in. The facilities of the Pokemon Centers are reserved for the highest officers." With his tone, he might as well have added a 'well, duh,' at the end.

"Really?" Ash asked. "It's never been like that where I come from. Anyone could've walked in, and taken a room there and stuff."

"Really?' Gulliver asked, not seeming to be able to believe Ash. "But how would that work? I mean, wouldn't it be expensive to heal Pokemon? Where would all the money come from? Say, can you tell me more about where you came from?"

"Sure, but first off, what do you do when you're Pokemon's injured?" Ash asked.

"Berries," Gulliver said. "But they restrict giving out Sitrus Berries and Oran Berries like they do with Pokeballs, but I have a handful. They were meant for my Pidgey, though I think you'd have a way better use for them."

"Pika, pika," Pikachu said.

"I can't really take this," Ash explained.

"No seriously, I insist," Gulliver said. "My Pidgey isn't strong enough to be useful, but you're going to have a battle up ahead with you." Ash reluctantly took the Berries.

As they traveled, Ash went into more detail about his earlier life, how he had met Pikachu and how it hadn't wanted to go into his Pokeball, and tried shortening stuff like all of his journeys through the various regions, and some people he remembered, which just made him miss home even more after a while so he stopped, wondering what all of them must have been wondering about him at that moment, and how- or rather, if, he'd be able to return.

At nightfall, they were pretty close to Sandalwood Town, but didn't dare get in close because they were sure that there would be people looking for them, and as Gulliver put it, "With your clothes you'd stand out like a Zangoose at a Seviper's tea party. Come to think of it by the way, I've never seen a Zangoose or Seviper though." And so they set up camp using some sticks and leaves (Ash didn't have his camping bag, and Gulliver didn't have anything either) and tried to fall asleep on their makeshift beds, which was hard. Dinner was a few apples and some other fruit they managed to gather, but at the very least it was filling.

"I just thought of something," Ash said, "what do I do after I get the first Gym Badge?"

"Then you're the boss, basically," Gulliver said. "I guess the main problem is that we don't know enough, but there's got to be a lot of officers and other higher-ups and libraries that Marley has access too, which you'll have access too."

Ash frowned. "So, if I take his Gym Badge, by defeating him in battle, everyone'll just listen to me?" That sounded strange. "Just like that?"

"Oh, it isn't because you beat him," Gulliver said. "It'll be because you have the Gym Badge. Whoever has the Gym Badge is in charge, because the Gym Badge can do all sorts of crazy stuff… like change the weather, alter river flows, heal wounds, accelerate crop growth, heal wounds, and even control the local wild Pokemon. The only thing that limits their power is distance and if another Badge is opposing them."

"Wow," Ash said. The Gym Badges where he had come from were a loud deviation from these ones.

"Yeah, that's why they want to keep 'em so badly," Gulliver explained. "And everyone in old times wanted to be one. 'Cept they don't tell us much about the old times, but I bet ya they have records for the nobs to use, so you cold probably go through them once you get the badge. Say Ash. You've fought a lot, right? What's it like?"

"Well, I have battled," Ash said. "For a really, really, long time. I've always wanted to be a Pokemon Master... but the thing is, despite everything I've tried, I well-" Ash choked as he felt his throat go dry. His feelings of failure, of having accomplished nothing after all this time, began to overwhelm him.

He had started off from Pallet Town so long ago with not much more than his bag and a dream... and what did he have now after that? After all that time? Experience yes, but you'd think he might've accomplished something real like winning a Championship by now.

"Say Ash," Gulliver said. "What were your parents like?"

Ash snapped out of his reverie. "I guess like all parents, really. Why?"

"I never knew mine," Gulliver said, his voice sounding like it came from several miles away. "They was all executed when they rebelled against Marley a long time back. I was only two."

Ash felt like he wanted to punch himself. Here he was, brooding over how he had not accomplished much, when he, in truth, had something that Gulliver must have longed for his entire life. Ash then began describing some times with his mother and what he remembered of his father. It was hard to keep the tears inside as he went over some memories and realized that he may never see them again.

He remember his mother most of all, and how she had always supported him and how her faith never wavered in him no matter how bad things got. She was always there for him... and never critical of the fact that he had left home to follow his dream. The moment he thought about her being gone forever, he was immediately flooded with dread and all those things like glory that he had been pining over seemed minuscule in comparison.

He made a promise to himself that he would always be thankful for what he had.

And then, as he imagined what Gulliver must've felt like, felt an immediate and intense hatred for this man named Marley. Who was he to do this to Gulliver?

"It sounds nice, having a family and all," Gulliver said after a while, his voice sounding distant again. He then began snoring a while later.

Ash took a look at his Pikachu, who was asleep, and fell asleep himself.

 **A/N: And that ends this. As a side note, it was hard trying to incorporate Pikachu into this chapter, as the first time I wrote it he wasn't mentioned at all. In the anime he does all this stuff, but it is mostly just motions so that you have to kind of write down. Also, is Pikachu male? I've always assumed so, and he isn't drawn like a female, but that difference only came in Generation IV and there were no differences before, but I think Pikachu is male, though I don't remember anything confirming/denying it.**

 **Also, I have to say that while Ash battles for a long time in the Anime, he's still young for some reason. It's sort of fine but it becomes kind of hard while writing a storyline as you run into that problem sometimes and if you want to make Ash grow, or see him become stronger. Because based on his experience, he should be a lot better now.**

 **Thanks again for reading, and do please review if you liked.**


	5. VS Marley V

Breakfast next morning, was, once again, apples, which just made Ash miss his friends, especially Brock even more. They tried their best to circumvent around the city and avoid people, but there were a lot of close calls. What counted as policemen in the region had been sent around everywhere, and they were searching every nook and cranny and messages were being spoken on megaphones throughout the place warning people and asking them to help in their search for Ash.

Ash also saw a couple of helicopters- something that Gulliver had never seen in his life so Ash had to explain to him that they were _supposed to avoid them_ and the searchlights that they had. The only reason they were able to escape so many times, as far as Ash could tell, was because Ash had experience living out in the wilderness unlike Gulliver, and that their law enforcement officers seemed to be about as good at searching for fugitives as Jessie and James were at stealing Pikachu. Something told Ash that they had probably rarely- if ever, had to do this before.

They somehow managed to get to route 203, which, to their dismay, they found flooded.

And it wasn't that the river had just slightly overflowed, it appeared that the nearby river had taken a sharp turn and suddenly decided to take a marathon race as it narrowed down, foaming as it passed over the landscape. There was no way that they could cross it.

"This was not here before," Gulliver said. "Which means Marley used his Gym Badge to change the river. He must really want you badly. I haven't seen this many cops out since… well, ever!"

"I guess I'd want me too," Ash said, "if he thought I was going to take his all-powerful Gym Badge."

Gulliver nodded. "A Gym Leader's basically a god so long as he keeps to his own neck o' the woods. Did'ya know, I heard somewhere that they can't be killed either as long as they have their Badges? There was a story where someone tried to poison one, but the Badge made it so that the poison turned to honey as it reached his throat. The assassin then made to stab him in his sleep, but the blade melted in his hand before he could begin."

"So the only way to get rid of him, is to beat him," Ash said. "We can't get over the river. Unless we had a Flying type…"

"You have your Spearow, but it can't fly both of us, or even one of us," Gulliver said. "Maybe we should try trailing back to Sandalwood Forest and get a Fearow."

"We'd probably just get caught," Ash said. "And I have a feeling those Fearow weren't strong enough either. Say, do you know a place that we should be safe? Where no one would look for us?"

Gulliver pointed down the river, "There's the Claw, or at least, that's what it is supposed to be. There's a bunch of rabid wild Pokemon in there, so no one goes there."

"Are they strong Pokemon?" Ash asked.

"Yeah? I guess, I mean they'd fight each other a lot."

"Then that's perfect for training my Spearow," Ash said. They set off towards there, and Ash realized why it was called the Claw, it was a huge rocky elevation that seemed to take the form of various crooked fingers, and looked like the kind of place that you'd tell a toddler to never go near because it was dangerous. Or an adult for that matter.

Ash looked at how many Oran Berries they had. It was enough, he thought. Or rather, he hoped it was enough.

* * *

Marley yawned as Mr. Jennings helped him put on his coat. The search for the trainer, apparently called 'Ash' was going nowhere for the last week, and Mr. Jennings had been recalled to office.

"It is time for your daily exercise routine sir," Mr. Jennings said.

Marley yawned, and replied, "I think I'll start with that next Monday, thanks."

Mr. Jennings didn't bother pointing out that he had been putting it off for next Monday for the last thirty-two years. "We have no word regarding this new Trainer. Redirecting the river should keep him away from Deluge City." Marley had been able to redirect the river's course using his Badge from his office in Deluge City and using a map to help visualize what he had to do. It had been a bit hard, because the Badge's powers decreased with distance, but a few seconds of effort were preferable to Marley rather than having to wheel himself outside and actually travel to the river.

"If he doesn't have a Water type," Marley said. He then frowned. "Come to think of it, all but the strongest Water types couldn't cross the river. Only a Flying type would."

"Regarding that, sir, the people of Sandalwood Town are complaining that they cannot get their goods across the river, and the merchants and peasants of Deluge City alike are saying that food prices have increased due to this, and asking that you remove the-"

"I will not remove anything," Marley said with finality. "If people starve, let them, but I do not want to risk this person approaching this city."

"Our reports suggest that he has only a Pikachu, sir," Mr. Jennings said.

"And yet he could have more," Marley said. "Or have captured one."

"No Pokeballs have been stolen."

"And yet he could have some from outside," Marley said. "Perhaps I should consider placing an air barrier as well."

"If I may interject sir-"

"No you may not,' Marley said. "I do not want to hear your complaints." Right then, Mr. Jenning's personal phone started beeping. It was a very old variety of cellphone and resembled a large grey brick rather than the common sleek and slender designs in the rest of the world aside from Galea. He answered it, and said, "Sir, there's something outside."

Both of them reached the balcony to see something on the horizon approaching, a Fearow, with a rider on top who was wearing a policeman's uniform and had a megaphone with him. Somewhere else, there was a policeman who had been knocked out and had his clothes and megaphone taken from him.

"Gym Leader Marley!" the rider said. "I, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, challenge you to a Pokemon Battle!"

Marley sighed. "Well, that's that then."

Mr. Jennings frowned. "What do you mean, sir?"

"He's challenged me and I've heard the challenge," Marley explained. "That makes him a challenger, which means that I'm not allowed to shoot at him or intercept him with a helicopter and must accept his challenge. Bother."

The Fearow landed on the balcony.

"Honestly," Marley said, "I was expecting more than a young boy, a peasant, and an electric rat."

"We'll see that after we fight!" Ash said as he got off his Fearow. Gulliver and Pikachu did as well.

"Hmm," Marley said. "Now that you've challenged me, I can't kill you, or for that matter kidnap your allies or Pokemon according to the laws of the land. But if you want a battle, it'll have to wait for a few hours."

"But you have to fight me!" Ash said. "The rules say so!" Just then there was a beeping noise from something he was carrying, a small red box, and it said:

 _The Gym Leaders must accept a challenge, but they are capable of delaying the time when they will battle to some extent._

The message wasn't of any importance to Marley by itself, it was the voices speaking it. Marley whipped around, looking as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Play that message again!" he shouted.

"What? Why?" Ash asked.

"Just do it!"

Ash begrudgingly played the thing again, though he wasn't sure what the message meant to Marley.

"I haven't heard those four voices in years," Marley said. Over thirty-two years, to be exact. "I will tell you when I'm ready."

"Why do you need time to get ready?" Ash asked.

"Because I, unfortunately, do not remember most of the rules," Marley said. "It has been quite some time, and the rulebook, if you're wondering is over a thousand pages long, and just the thought of reading it makes me-" he yawned loudly. "Anyway, you're the first and only challenger I've ever received, so I'll need some time. Make yourselves comfortable."

Not to mention, Marley thought, he had a phone call to make.


	6. VS Marley VI

Marley had rushed to his room in order to make the phone call to Selena.

"What happened?" she asked after coming on to answer the phone five minutes later. "I was in the middle of giving a lecture."

"Oh I just wanted to have tea and have a nice chat about the weather," Marley snarled sarcastically. "Did it ever occur to you the fact that if I was actually taking the effort to call you of all people, it would definitely be about something important?"

"Get to the point already," she said.

"You were right about the storm," Marley said. "It appeared to carry a boy and his Pokemon here. The boy's name is Ash and he has currently challenged me to a Gym Battle."

"Oh dear," Selena said. "There's not really much I can do now. Or anyone for that matter. If you had asked for soldiers earlier-"

"Then you all would've said no- don't act all generous now," Marley said. "And that's not why I called. I know I have to battle the boy, that isn't the problem. What is the problem is that he had a machine, and it appeared to be giving him advice regarding the rules of the Gyms. And the voice it spoke in was that of the Elite Four, as if they were all talking together."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely," Marley said. He was sure he was not the only one of the Gym Leaders who occasionally had nightmares that the Elite Four were coming after him, not that he'd ever ask, of course.

"Hmm," Selena said. "That does tell us something at least, about this Ash person. Whoever made that device, or modified it, has either had the Elite Four actually say those words, though we know that's impossible, or had recorded enough of their voices to manipulate them to say almost anything."

"Is that possible?"

"Yes," Selena said. "But you would need quite a lot of recordings, meaning that the person was with the Elite Four for quite some time. Also, we know that the person who has orchestrated this must have some idea of the spatial-temporal barrier surrounding Galea."

"The barrier is maintained by His Majesty, the Eighth Gym Leader, and Emperor, is it not?" Marley asked.

"Actually, I also manage it to some extent," she said. "But one of the others could have also figured something out."

"You suspect… that one of us did this?" Marley asked.

"When you think about it, it seems to be the only logical conclusion," Selena said. "If we look for people who had contact with all of the Four Heavenly Kings, it would of course, be us, and for someone who knows the rules so well and about the barrier, very few people besides us fit in. After all, we hunted down the Elite Four's relatives and anyone who could have been loyal to them."

"Not all of them," Marley said. "If I remember correctly, we were never able to capture Emily's sister, or Arthur's apprentice. And what of their secretary?"

"He defected and joined us, don't you remember? His name was Alan Lazar," Selena said. "And it is true that they're both missing and I couldn't find them, but I have a hard time believing that they could've done something like this. Most likely, it was another Gym Leader."

"The Accord doesn't forbid this?"

"No," Selena said. "We never thought it was necessary, because obviously, why would someone do something that would threaten their rule?"

"Then it wasn't one of us," Marley declared confidently.

Selena shook her head.

"Stop patronizing me, woman! I am not one of your students, and this is not a classroom," Marley said. "If you have an answer, spit it out!"

"There's no need to be so rude," Selena said, barely restraining her own anger. "I meant Wade, the fifth Gym Leader. If I remember correctly, he always had a guilty conscience about us betraying the Elite Four."

Marley paused for a minute. That was right, and Wade had opposed many of their other ideas later on, including the ban on selling of Pokeballs and catching Pokemon by unauthorized personnel. He had a reputation, far and wide, as being a fair and just Gym Leader.

"Guilty enough to do this?" Marley asked.

"It's not like I know for sure," Selena muttered. "But his territory is the ocean, and his Badge lets him manipulate it, and his territory is very close to the border. Is it possible that he figured out some way to manipulate it with the barrier weakening?"

"Then shouldn't His Majesty be doing something?"

"No need to shout," Selena said. "As for His Majesty," the word, as always was spit from her lips as if it were poison, "is probably, as usual, busy admiring his own reflection in the mirror or devoting a poem to the love of his life- himself -to care about anything. And you know how hard it is sending him a message. Was that all you wanted?"

"No, I also wanted to confirm some things about the rules," Marley said.

"You have your book. It was supposed to be mandatory reading," Selena said.

"Right, you do realize that you're probably the only one who has read this thing?" Marley asked, lifting up his own very dusty, very heavy, tome. "Now, I've asked the boy to wait for some time so I can challenge him later. What other rules should I know of?"

"Well, you are in your rights to ask for a delay," Selena said. "I mean, if the Gym Leader was in the middle of something important, it would've been impertinent to ask him to leave in the middle of a business meeting or funeral, so you can delay it by up to one week, or a month in case the realm's in danger."

"And I'm not allowed to kill the challenger, yes?" Marley asked.

"I thought you'd know that."

"I do!"

"Well, yes, you can't kill him, and neither can your servants, and for that matter if you notice anyone trying to do so, you have to try and stop them," Selena said. "And you can't take away or injure his Pokemon outside of a fair battle, though you're always welcome to use your…. special rule against him. You also can't take any of his family or friends or anyone else for that matter related to him hostage until you win. A draw, however, means that you win."

"If I win, am I similarly supposed to show mercy to him?"

"No," Selena said. "If you win, he can't challenge you again for another three days, in which you are free to crush his head. I'm assuming, of course, that you're confident that you can win?"

Marley gulped. "I am almost certain in that regard… though I am out of practice and have, ah, slightly neglected training my Pokemon as of late. Which is why I also wanted to request that you give me one of your Pokemon, only for the battle of course, so that my victory is assured. I do not know of the boy's strengths, you see."

Selena flatly said, "No. I'm afraid that my Pokemon are far too valuable and that I spend far too much time into training them for someone like you to use them."

Marley snarled. "You don't realize do you, that this boy is a problem for all of us? He probably thinks that we unfairly overthrew the Four Heavenly Kings, and thanks to that oath His Majesty made us swear in the Accord, none of us can even tell him or anyone else who does not already know why we did what we did and why it was so necessary, or even regarding the calamity thirty-two years ago, with the exception of His Majesty himself. What if he does defeat me then? He will not be satisfied with only my domain, and will move on to the others, and perhaps even reach yours thinking he's some sort of avenging angel instead of someone destroying years of hard work. And I highly doubt His Majesty will bother taking his head out from where it's lodged in the clouds to tell the boy himself."

"I am more than capable of defending myself," Selena said. "And you need to stop acting so scared of a mere boy. And for that matter, there are things you can do to help you. You can have at most five of your servants fight him first, as Gym Trainers, to see if he is worthy enough- so that a Gym Leader wouldn't be inundated with requests to fight, of course- and so delay him or at least find out about his capabilities."

"And what if you aren't?" Marley asked. "What if I fail? Then he will become a Gym Leader, and you will not even be able to kill him then."

Selena smiled. "A Gym Leader is difficult to kill, yes, but not impossible. Haven't you read about the assassination of the Heiro Dynasty?"

"That does not matter! That was in an earlier age! The truce prevents us from killing or imprisoning a Gym Leader," Marley said. "If he becomes one, that means that none of us will be able to assassinate him."

"Then do make sure to win," Selena said.

"What kind of a response it that! And don't you- don't you dare- she cut the call already," Marley muttered.

As such, in sequence, he called the rest of the Gym Leaders he knew, asking for some stronger Pokemon, but was met with the same response.

* * *

Everyone knows what it feels like to think that something's watching you.

Selena had been feeling it for the last thirty-two years. The other Gym Leaders might have called her paranoid, but her mind would never- it could never- rest easy. She had decided to give her students the rest of the class off so she could concentrate on other things.

Namely, on what had been bugging her for so many years. She couldn't shake off the feeling that she had missed something those many years ago, that the Elite Four had a backup plan. Back in the day they had been very influential; surely they would've tried something, had some sort of contingency plan or something ready when they realized they were doomed.

And as always, as she sat alone in her office, her instinct, honed over so many years she couldn't even count them anymore, told her that someone… or something was spying on her.

And as always, she could find nothing there. There were not even any cameras she could detect, and her domain was the hub of technology in Galea.

"Get me a Porygon Z," she said to an aide after a while.

 **A/N: I know a Pokemon fanfic isn't very exciting with a lot of talking, but there will be a lot of talking... though next time, Ash will begin his battle. Thanks for reading, and do review if you liked.**


	7. VS Marley VII

The match took place later in the afternoon. Marley saw no point in delaying it any more since he was probably not going to train anyway. Marley took that time to hastily arrange for five Gym Trainers.

Aside from Mr. Jennings, he knew that all of them were pathetic, and their only real purpose was that so he could gauge how strong Ash was, and also to tire him and his Pokemon out.

As such, they all had six Pokemon which had hastily been arranged by 'borrowing' them from other places, and then forcibly evolving them.

The match was to take place in the room designed for challenges, but that had to be cleaned up as it had been used as a storage space for most of the years. Mr. Jennings stood next to Marley, who was sitting on what looked like a throne while looking active for once. After all, all of his power was at stake here.

Ash was on one side of the field, which was about how big a Gym Leader's field would be in Kanto and other places. The field itself was just a barren plain, no rocks or other obstacles were placed in it. The ceiling was placed high, but not so high up as to give a Flying type too much of an advantage.

The first trainer was Elizabeth, maybe because Marley thought that with some experience fighting Ash before, she might be able to find a weakness (he clearly didn't know that she had been defeated humiliatingly- or maybe she had conveniently left that part out in her report).

This theory was proven wrong within five minutes as Ash's Fearow was able to one-hit knock-out all of her Pokemon without even breaking a sweat. The prematurely evolved Pokemon seemed to be stronger than they would be without evolving, but that still didn't mean they were in any particular way strong without training them.

"Great going Ash!" Gulliver said, who was watching along with Pikachu on the sidelines.

Marley yawned and said, "Next." He was wondering exactly how he would execute Ash and Gulliver. He was sure the old guillotine couldn't be wrong, but there were also so many other things he could do.

The next three trainers also fell to Ash very quickly, but Fearow did begin to tire out and took some minor blows, like a Linoone managed to hurt its left foot rather badly, and a Beedrill managed to get a Poison Sting in, though thankfully Fearow didn't get Poisoned.

"Jennings, take care of him," Marley finally said.

Mr. Jennings was probably the only one of Marley's trainers who had kept up with training, and had refused to ask for the Irresolute Badge's power as a shortcut to training.

His first Pokemon was a Linoone, but this one looked a lot larger and heavier than the other one Ash had faced.

Ash withdrew his Fearow for the time being, and went with using Pikachu.

Mr. Jennings began, "Use Mud Sport!"

That move scattered mud across the battlefield, making Electric type attacks less powerful.

It was a good plan, but Ash didn't use an Electric attack. "Pikachu! Iron Tail!"

The Linoone tried to avoid the Iron Tail, but was too slow and took it on its left flank, though to its credit it didn't faint immediately.

"Linoone, Return!" Mr. Jennings said. This confused Ash a bit, because he thought that Linoone would be going back to Mr. Jennings, but actually it was the move Return, and so he didn't really tell Pikachu to dodge it, with the result being that Pikachu took a hit.

However, Linoone suddenly felt sparks dance around it, and seemed to be slowed down considerably.

"Oh dear, Static," Marley muttered.

It was pretty bad, because Linoone then fell to Pikachu's Thunderbolt, despite the Mud Sport and everything and was not even able to avoid it due to being Paralyzed.

Mr. Jennings may have been training, but a side effect of preventing anyone from challenging the Gym Leaders meant that they as well as their Gym Trainers had almost no experience against an actual Trainer, and certainly not one who was battling and meant it.

The next one up was an Arcanine, one that had a glamorous coat that would've probably made Dawn or May squeal at how shiny and perfect it was.

But this was not a Pokemon Contest, and Mr. Jennings seemed to have realized that using physical attacks was not going to be to his advantage, and so started off with a Fire Blast.

Ash got Pikachu to dodge that very quickly using a Quick Attack, and then launched another Thunderbolt.

The attack hit true, but didn't seem to have much effect, probably due to the Mud Sport. It was then that Ash withdrew his Pikachu and sent out Fearow again.

"Extreme Speed," Mr. Jennings said.

Fearow was hit with full-on with a creature that weighed at least twice as much as it, but was still thankfully able to fly, and dodge the subsequent Flamethrowers sent at it in the air.

Ash, though, knew he had to do something. "Fearow! Use Drill Peck!"

Fearow managed to avoid another Flamethrower, flew rather too close to the ground, and its attack hit true on the Arcanine.

The Arcanine looked shocked, with an expression that clearly seemed to say, 'I got hurt! I got hurt!'

"Wait," Ash said, "you're telling me that your Pokemon have never been injured in battle before?"

"There are always a few small wounds," Mr. Jennings said, though he knew none of them had taken a real hit from a Pokemon that meant to do them harm.

This was all enough to turn the tide in Ash's favor, and the opposing Arcanine was knocked out, but at the end managed to get a Fire Fang in and that seemed to weaken Fearow quite a bit.

"Ah, forgive me sir, I no longer have any Pokemon left," Mr. Jennings said.

"That was all?' Marley asked. True, Mr. Jennings had lasted longer than the other four trainers combined, but Marley had been hoping for more than just two Pokemon. "Well then child, it seems that you'll be facing me now. "

In that time, Marley had decided upon Ash's method of execution, one normally reserved for higher-born prisoners, but he thought that Ash somehow warranted it: to be wrapped in a carpet and have several Rapidash set upon him, thereby trampling him to death. After all, it would maintain the dignity of his person at least.

"Good job!" Gulliver said. "I bet Marley'll be a real pushover after that!"

Marely didn't say anything, but he thought that Gulliver didn't warrant something as grand as being trampled, or as simple and quick as beheading. No, he would probably instead have molten gold dumped in his eyes and ears. Or silver- silver was cheaper.

As Marley walked near the battlefield, his lethargy evaporated, and an odd gleam entered his eyes. He touched his Gym Badge, so that he would remember just what was at stake here.

"Before we begin, the rules do state that I have to talk to you about my special rule," Marley said.

"What special rule?" Ash asked.

"The special rule that I will be telling you about if you just wouldn't interrupt me!" Marley snarled. "Now, every Gym Leader is allowed to fight with a special, you might say, handicap when faced with a challenger. My rule is that even if my Pokemon faint, I can bring them back into battle by evolving them."

"That seems downright unfair," Gulliver said. "And why does the Gym Leader get to use a special rule? If anythin', shouldn't it be the challenger who gets a handicap?"

Marley shrugged. "That is simply how it is. And if you think my rule is unfair, you should see what some of the others are allowed to do. Not that you will."

As this was the main event, Marley ordered Mr. Jennings to become sort of the referee/announcer and for the electronic board in the Gym to be set up, which incidentally, took an hour to set up as no one could figure out how it worked after all these years, and then Ash had to use the restroom, and then it was time for supper, and so on and so forth so that when the time for the match finally came it was past sundown. Ash had run out of berries, and obviously he wouldn't be allowed to use the Pokemon Center, so there wasn't much for healing his Pokemon. He didn't know though that he wasn't allowed to heal in-between anyway.

"So," Mr. Jennings said, "In one corner, we have Lord Marley, who is the Gym Leader who will be using two Pokemon, and in the other corner, Sir Ash, who I believe also is using two Pokemon?" Ash nodded. "Alright, so the game ends when all of one's Pokemon are unable to battle, though Lord Marley is allowed to revive them if he can evolve them using the Irresolute Badge. And, let the battle begin!"

Marley started out with a Slakoth.

"Really?" Ash asked. "That's it?"

"I will have you know," Marley said, "that I intended to train it after I had caught it, but was busy doing other things."

'Right, busy sleeping that is, you slugabed,' Mr. Jennings thought.

"How long ago was that?" Ash asked.

"Oh," Marley said, "around twenty years ago."

"You've been putting training it off for twenty years?" Ash asked.

'I was honestly surprised he even bothered to catch it,' Mr. Jennings thought.

The Slakoth, quite predictably, was defeated by Fearow in a single hit. Marley didn't seem surprised, rather, he just used his Badge, and Slakoth grew into a Vigoroth. While it didn't seem too malformed, it did look exhausted.

'Evolving doesn't completely heal them,' Mr. Jennings noticed. He then frowned. 'In that case though, it would have made more sense for Lord Marley to have evolved it from before the battle, so that at least it would start as a Slaking at its full health…'

The Vigiroth was fast, and was going for where Fearow had been injured earlier, particularly where the Fire Fang had hit. If Fearow had been well rested, Ash wouldn't have hesitated in striking Vigiroth, but due to his current condition, Fearow was trying to stay out of range.

Finally, Marley's Vigiroth faltered, probably due to exhaustion, and Fearow struck true, though it ended up taking a blow straight to the chest.

"Fearow! Hang on!" Ash said, though he could tell that Fearow couldn't take another hit.

Vigiroth had fainted, though Marley simply evolved it again. This time, it was quite malformed as the Slaking's arms and legs looked much too small and frail to support it.

Surprisingly, Marley ordered his Slaking to attack, with what looked like complete disregard for its safety. Slaking managed to grab one of Fearow's wings, but was taking a Drill Peck attack while it punched Fearow mercilessly.

Fearow toppled over, and Mr. Jennings declared it unable to battle. A few seconds later, the Slaking did too.

"Poor Slaking," Marley said without a hint of remorse and withdrew Slaking. He smiled. "I've won."

"Whadda ya mean?" Ash asked.

"Simple. I went through that lengthy procedure simply so that I could exhaust, and take out your Fearow, your Flying type rather than evolving it to a Slaking directly," Marley said. "And I'm afraid your electric rat is no match for my next Pokemon."

"Yeah right," Ash said. "I bet your next Pokemon is something you'll evolve too, right?"

Marley snorted. "Are you seriously so daft child, as to not realize that at some point, even I would have challenged a Gym Leader to gain my position? And that, I would have had to been very strong to do so?"

He sent out a Pokemon, one that Ash knew well. It was a huge grass snake, a fully evolved Serperior. It was not deformed or stunted in any way, and though Ash wasn't a Breeder, he could tell that Brock would definitely have been fascinated by it, with the way its think tendons stood out and its leaves shined like emeralds.

This Pokemon hadn't been evolved using the Irresolute Badge haphazardly… because it was clear that it was the Pokemon that had won Marley the Irresolute Badge in the first place.

"Pikachu, I choose you," Ash said and realized that the real fight was just beginning.

 **A/N: That ends it for now. I put in Marley having a Slakoth, Fenrir's Phantom, though it is going to be his Serperior which is going to really cause Ash damage. After all, Marley might be lazy, but he did get his position by winning it.**

 **Thanks for reading, and please do review if you liked!**


	8. VS Marley VIII

The Serperior glared at Pikachu, and Ash could tell that his Pokemon was nervous. He was pretty nervous too.

"I have the type advantage now," Marley said. "And your Pokemon is weakened. Though I will remember about the Static ability. Serperior, Leaf Tornado!"

"Pikachu, dodge using Quick Attack!" Ash said. It was difficult to dodge the whirlwind of leaves with the plain terrain and nothing to hide behind, but Pikachu was exceptionally nimble and not only managed to evade the leaves, but also struck the Serperior.

The only problem was that the attack seemed to have done close to nothing and the Serperior merely shook it off.

Marley then attempted a few other attacks. Vine Whip, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, to no avail and to have Pikachu dodge it using the same technique. If he wanted to, he could have probably struck Pikachu down using a swift Slam attack, but didn't want to risk getting afflicted by Static.

This frustrated Marley, but Ash was almost equally frustrated, given that the attacks didn't seem to faze the Serperior at the least.

"Let's see you dodge this then," Marley snarled. "Serperior, Magical Leaf!"

"Pikachu, dodge it!" Ash said, though a faint memory of that move seemed to come to him. It was special somehow, he knew, though what exactly it was seemed to escape him…

And then he remembered. The attack couldn't be dodged. The leaves that the Serperior shout out flashed different colors, and seemed to be able to hone onto Pikachu.

Pikachu took a couple of more hits from the same move, and Ash knew that he had to do something. In a moment of desperation, he said, "Pikachu! Thunderbolt!" with little regard for the fact that it was a disadvantage to do so, given the type mismatch.

But, some god or higher being seemed to have favored Ash that day, as familiar sparks once again began to hum around his enemy's Pokémon.

"Paralysis," Marley snarled. "Lucky brat. Serperior! Light Screen!"

The tide seemed to turn in Ash's favor then. While Magical Leaf was still not possible to dodge, the Serperior was unable to use it for long due to being unable to move sometimes, and Ash and his Pikachu kept pummeling it relentlessly using Iron Tail.

It seemed that Ash was winning… for a few seconds. Then, the Serperior began to glow a deep shade of forest green.

"You're not the only one with an ability," Marley said. "Feel the wrath of Overgrow!"

After that, as far as Mr. Jennings could tell, the two of them were evenly matched. It seemed, according to him, that the outcome of the match would not be decided by who had more skill, but rather by luck. All it would take was for Serperior to be unable to move for a few times in a row due to Paralysis, or for it to be able to move freely for a few moves, and that would be all that would determine the outcome.

Still, Mr. Jennings had to give this child, Ash Ketchum, credit, for being able to go toe-to-toe with Marley's Serperior, even against a type disadvantage.

"Time for this to end," Marley said with a strange gleam in his eyes. "Serperior! Frenzy Vine!"

Ash had never seen an attack so powerful, save for perhaps from a Legendary. The very ground opened up completely, and vines almost as thick as Ash came out, spreading out and covering the entire field, and much beyond. They destroyed everything in their path. The very earth seemed to tremble under the attack's sheer power.

It was a spectacular, awe-inspiring move.

The only problem was that it had missed.

"Pikachu! Iron Tail!" Ash said and dealt the final blow.

"Serperior is unable to battle!" Mr. Jennings said. "The challenger, Ash Ketchum is the winner, and the new Gym Leader, and lord and commander of this territory!"

"No!" Marley screamed and his hand went for his Gym Badge, but it had already left him, and was now suspended several feet over his head, before it drifted over to Ash and pinned itself to his coat.

Mr. Jennings walked over to Ash and said, "Congratulations, Sir Ash. We all wait for your orders."

"You turned on him pretty quickly," Gulliver said.

"Not without reason," Mr. Jennings said. "I've seen this man torture, humiliate, and create a general decadence in rule for the last thirty-two years, him and his band of seven other comrades. "

"Traitor!" Marley screamed, nearly foaming at the mouth. He turned to his Serperior, who was still fainted and said, "One attack! You made one attack, and in that very moment, you just had to miss!" He then added, "And those other seven… I was so close to defeating you! If they had just lent me but a single Pokemon…"

"Let's ignore his ramblings for now, Sir Ash," Mr. Jennings said. "As you can imagine, there is much to do. The river that you no doubt saw needs to be placed back into its proper course if supplies are to reach our city, and there are several incarcerated people who were imprisoned without trial, not to mention there are several homes which are currently starving and-"

"Just wait for a minute," Ash said. "I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't really care about all that for the time being, or it can come later. I just wanted to know how to get home." He then recited the bit about the storm, and how he had ended up in Galea.

Marely seemed to have stopped fuming and came to his senses. He seemed to have realized that being trampled was perhaps the best thing that would happen to him if he didn't say something soon. "I believe I may have some information for you in that regard, Ash."

Mr. Jennings whirled around. "Quiet man, we have had enough of your talk for several decades and-"

Marley waved Mr. Jennings aside. "Tell me child, who do you think could possibly give you any real information? That man, a glorified lieutenant, or one of the Gym Leaders themselves? From what you have said and described, I can only assume that you were lead astray from your world through the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world. And, I do believe that your, ah, Pokedex has been modified? The voices in it are those of the Elite Four."

"What did you do to the Elite Four?" Ash asked. "What happened all those years ago?"

Marley shook his head. "We are sworn to secrecy in those matters, upon the Gym Badges themselves as part of the Accord. You are free to attempt to force me to tell the truth using the Irresolute Badge, but you cannot force me to tell that which I swore upon the Gym Badges to keep secret. We cannot speak of the calamity that graced our land, or the identity of the eight Gym Leader, His Majesty, the only one with leave to do that is His Majesty himself. And the problem is that furthermore I do not know what happened to the Elite Four. It was Selena and His Majesty who fought them in the final battle, and I do not know what happened afterwards, though if Selena had her way, the four of them are most certainly dead."

"Selena? Who's that?" Ash asked.

"The seventh Gym Leader, and probably the one who is going to oppose you the most should you continue on a path of conquest," Marley answered.

"Then how would I get back?" Ash asked.

"I do not know," Marley said. "The barrier is maintained mainly by His Majesty, and Selena in part. For that matter, I do not believe that there is a way you could go back."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Gulliver said. "If Ash managed to get in here somehow, shouldn't he also be able to get out?" Pikachu nodded emphatically.

"Again, I do not know, but most likely the only one who would know that is His Majesty, the eighth Gym Leader, and he is certainly not going to help you," Marley said. "His territory is separated from all of Galea and lies towards the north, and for some reason telephones don't work in his domain. The only way to communicate with him is through Pokemon delivering mail, and I have not received a missive from him in the past thirty-two years, so I doubt that he will help you, or even bother to read your mail. Not to mention that the other seven Gym Leaders will not like that an outsider has come to upset our rule."

"There is little they can do to combat that," Mr. Jennings said. "The Accord forbids them from attacking another Gym Leader, or interfering in his or her property. And if this eighth Gym Leader wishes not to listen to Sir Arthur, well, he can very well go and collect the other Badges."

"I thought you just said that the Gym Leaders couldn't attack each other?" Ash asked, confused.

"Incorrect, they signed a treaty, and so cannot attack you," Mr. Jennings said. "You have signed nothing Sir Arthur, and so are not bound by it, but only by the ancient rules governing the Gym Leaders." He then smiled. "I do not doubt Marley was not going to tell you that."

Marley did look rather put off by it, but didn't seem to mind that much. "But you cannot hope to defeat them, Ash. You barely scraped by with me, and I have hardly been doing anything for the past few years. You will never be able to take down Selena, let alone His Majesty. And you no doubt know little about running a state. I do not doubt your skill in battle, but you are but a child. It is better that you abdicate, and return the Gym Badge to me. In return, I will try to look for a way to get you back where you belong…"

Mr. Jennings snorted, but paled when he saw that Ash actually seemed to be considering it. "Sir Ash! You mustn't trust him! He was just a few minutes ago thinking about the best way to kill both of you! You haven't seen how cruel he can be."

"I admit it, my rule may have been slightly harsh," Marley said. "But you must understand that it was not so without reason, Ash. In my position, it was necessary to do what I did. If news got out about the calamity and the Elite Four, it would cause mass mayhem, so we swore to keep it a secret. As such, most of Galea has been kept in ignorance as to what happened, and believe that we, the Gym Leaders, were the villains. While I cannot give you the details, let me suffice it to say that we were forced to do what we did to save this land. And to prevent uprisings we placed such rules into motion. However, I see now that it I may have gone slightly overboard with it. I will keep that in mind during my future reign should you be kind enough to return my Badge to me."

"If I give you the Badge you'll just kill us," Ash retorted.

"Not necessarily," Marley said. "We can make a deal upon the Irresolute Badge. I will not harm you- or your friends, and we can together attempt to find a way to return you back to Kanto. It is a simple matter, you need merely hand over the Badge to me and speak a few words solemnizing the deal. The Badges cannot be taken, but they can be given with free will."

"Don't do it!" Gulliver said.

"Sir Ash- I must protest-" Mr. Jennings began.

But, truth be told, Ash knew he didn't belong here. He wasn't supposed to become some sort of feudal lord in a foreign land. And he certainly wasn't ready to carry its burdens on his did he know about running the place? His mother wouldn't have trusted him with an RV, let alone a small country!

It would be so easy… to let someone older- to let an _adult_ worry about how to feed a city and a million of other things he wasn't ready for.

 **A/N: It occurs to me that I didn't explain the Rapidash trampling people to death thing. That was a bit of stuff borrowed from the Mongols, who had a superstition that it was wrong to spill the blood of a royal person on the ground, so instead they would take their enemy princes or head religious leaders and have them sewn into carpets and later trampled on by horses or by feasting on top of them. This was actually considered merciful in a way because they weren't shedding royal blood.**

 **How did this custom get into Galea? Well, Galea has a bunch of rules, and while you may point out that Ash isn't royalty, though maybe we could kind of say Marley might count, but he sort of just wanted to say that he didn't think Ash was a peasant and all and maybe deserved something grander.**


	9. VS Marley IX

**A/N: Fenrir's Phantom, it wasn't really up to a poll. I've kind of already decided a good chunk of how the story will continue. I am open to one idea though, should I bring in someone else from outside somehow? I don't want to use it as a plot device over and over, but I was considering bringing someone, perhaps Team Rocket into the story. Thoughts on that?**

"No," Ash said, as he took a look at his Pikachu, who was looking at him with the same sad eyes as when he had earlier almost told Gulliver that he'd leave the place if he'd get a chance. "I can't just let someone like you back in charge." Not after what Marley had done.

Marley's calm demeanor evaporated and he began shouting until he was foaming at the mouth again. The whole thing really annoyed Ash, and unconsciously, his fingers brushed the Irresolute Badge and he shouted, "Quiet!"

Marley instantly stopped talking and making a ruckus, though he looked as defiant as always.

"Very good, Sir Arthur," Mr. Jennings said. "With that over, I would suggest that we carry on with the execution as immediately as possible."

"Execution?" Ash asked.

"Indeed," Mr. Jennings said. "I assume that you'd want to perhaps give Marley a trial first, before going with having the noose prepared?"

"Wait, the noose?" Ash asked. "We can't just go and hang Marley!"

Mr. Jennings said, "Ah, of course sir, Marley was a Gym Leader after all, and it wouldn't do for him to be executed like a simple peasant. I'm assuming that you'd prefer he be sewn into a carpet, and then trampled upon by several Rapidash instead?"

"No," Ash said, rather freaked out by what Mr. Jennings was describing. "I'm not executing anyone."

This seemed to completely baffle Mr. Jennings. "Sir, I can understand compassion, but do you have any inkling of what this man has done over the years of his reign? My skin crawls merely at thinking of them. It would be a grave injustice to let his actions go unpunished."

Ash was about to answer that it wasn't his place to go and punish people, but then he remembered that in this case it apparently was. A few seconds into his reign and he was already lost as to what to do. "I'm not killing him though."

"Well, for the time being," Mr. Jennings said, "we should have him locked up then. And his Pokemon removed from him."

Marley gave a frantic look at his Serperior, and Ash felt a queasy feeling in his stomach. It was obvious that while Marley may not have cared for his Slakoth-Slaking, whatever, he did seem to care quite a deal about his Serperior. And it seemed so inherently wrong to Ash to take away someone's Pokemon. The only ones he knew who were cruel enough to do that back where he came from where the bad guys. "I'm not going to take his Pokemon away from him either. I guess locking him up would be the right thing to do though."

"But Sir Ash!" Mr. Jennings protested. "Within three days Marley will be able to challenge you for the Gym Badge again! He can't challenge anyone else, but he's free to challenge you for his Badge back!"

"And he'll fail at it," Ash said. "I have the upper hand now, as the Gym Leader. Not to mention it will take much longer than three days for his Serperior to recover."

"So, you're just going to let him go?" Gulliver asked, surprised. "But Ash, I mean Lord Ash- surely you're going to do something about-"

Gulliver was interrupted as a messenger burst into the room. "Lord Marley! There is a-" he paused as he saw that Marley looked a whole lot less haughtier than normal, and then his eyes found Arthur and the Irresolute Badge pinned to his chest. "Uh, well, there's a phone call, Selena is asking for Lord Marley."

"Selena... the same one who controls the barrier?" Ash asked.

"The same," Mr. Jennings said. "I wonder what she wants."

"I want to talk to her then," Ash said. He walked out of the room and Mr. Jennings motioned for some of the guards to watch over Marley.

Ash was led to what he was told used to be Marley's office/chambers though what it was called now depended on what Ash wanted to call it. Ash sat down, and Pikachu began napping on the floor (it had had a pretty long and tiring day, so Ash didn't disturb him.)

The first thing that registered in Ash's head when he saw the telephone screen was that the woman sitting there was absolutely drop-dead _gorgeous_! It was like Giselle had an older, hotter, blue-haired sister! Not to mention she was dressed up like an empress. Dawn and Selena probably would've gave their front teeth to have that outfit. It probably cost a fortune.

At the same time though, there was something about her that also seemed to say that she was a whole lot meaner and far more arrogant than Giselle was.

She looked at Ash for a minute, confused, and then saw the Irresolute Badge he had. "Oh dear. Marley lost, didn't he?"

"Yes," Ash said. "Are you Selena, the seventh Gym Leader?"

"Yes child," Selena said and yawned. "Well, since you've now won, there are some things that I suppose I'll have to tell you, or rather, make sure you understand..."

"Wait," Ash said. "First of all, I just want to go back to Kanto. I came here during a storm-"

"A storm at sea, I know that," Selena said. "There seemed to be an odd fracture in the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world earlier. It has repaired itself, thankfully, however."

"Wait- but I have to!" Ash said. "I need to go back."

"Sorry, but I cannot open it," Selena said. "The barrier gets more unstable as time passes, and I just will not risk it and the lives of everyone in Galea in order to send one person back. And anyway, I don't see why you'd want to go back. I still remember parts of the rest of the world before, and unless it has changed much, I don't think what is outside would be better than what you'll acquire as a Gym Leader. So just sit here and relax with your newfound power."

"I don't want this power!" Ash said. "I just want to go back!"

Selena raised an eyebrow elegantly. "You've been offered almost unlimited power, and you don't want it? In that case, I'll be happy to take it, but you aren't going to get any closer to going back home."

Ash sighed. "Everyone I know is outside. My family… my friends…. My other Pokemon."

"And you cannot give them up?" Selena asked. "Surely you must understand that the spatial-temporal barrier exists to prevent Galea from destruction? Are you memories more important than so many innocent lives?"

"And you still won't tell me any of why it's there in the first place," Ash said. "And if I came here without everything going wrong, I bet I can get out too. And I'll find a way to do so, even if I do have to get to you first."

Selena began laughing. On the one hand it sounded like the purest music, but at the same time was also condescending and Ash felt his cheeks go red. "Child, do you have any idea who you're dealing with? Marley was hardly a great Gym Leader. I doubt you'll even get past Thomdolt. And for that matter, do not forget that I wrote the Accord myself… and made sure to include some rather interesting loopholes in it. There are quite a number of things that I can do to hamper you."

As if right on cue, the telephone went off, and the computer began displaying an error message.

Ash stared at the screen for ten minutes wondering what was wrong before Mr. Jennings came in. "Sir Ash! We have a problem! Something- or someone, has hacked into our online archives and records, and we seem to have lost most of our data. All systems are currently offline for now, we should be able to get them right up by tomorrow morning, though the data loss may be irretrievable."

Ash explained what had happened with Selena.

"Most likely, this is her doing," Mr. Jennings said. "She controls most of the technological innovation in Galea, and this would explain how she plans to delay you. Or, perhaps it is a warning that you should not mess with her."

"But is she allowed to do that?" Ash asked. "I mean, shouldn't there be something in the Accord that says she can't go around infecting our computer servers?"

"Actually, computers were only introduced from her domain to other parts of Galea around twenty-five years ago," Mr. Jennings said. "That was after the Accord, so it would probably not have been covered under that."

"But then you guys probably still have lots of written records, right?" Ash asked.

"Yes, or at least we did," Mr. Jennings said. "Maintaining written records was problematic not least due to the cost, but because we had to keep hiring and training new people to maintain them, and Marley did not like to have that sort of information fall into other people's gazes so often, so he converted a lot of the important ones to our digital archives and then burnt the originals. Not all of it was completed, mainly due to laziness and inefficiency, but a good deal of our archives currently exist simply on a hard drive."

Suddenly, Pikachu sprang up and began making fierce noises and sniffing around. Ash hadn't seen Pikachu upset like that since the one time he'd tried cooking something special using Brock's recipes for him and it had not turned out good.

From the screen of the telephone a small figure came out. It was a strange thing, but something that Ash recognized without even needing his Pokedex: a Porygon-Z.

Pikachu began snarling angrily and made a lunge for the Porygon-Z. Unfortunately, the rest of Ash's and Mr. Jenning's Pokemon had been knocked out so there wasn't much they could do.

The Porygon-Z dodged the attack and went for Ash, though it wasn't exactly going for him, but rather, his pocket, or where the Pokedex was after it turned into a small blue ball of energy. Ash's Pokedex blinked different colors for a few seconds before the Porygon-Z emerged and returned to the telephone/computer thing.

They were all tense for the next ten minutes as they waited for something to happen, but it didn't look like the Porygon-Z was going to return. Perhaps it had gone back to its owner.

"I think we've discovered the virus that has been infecting our computers," Mr. Jennings said.

"Why didn't it attack us though?" Ash thought. "I mean, if it was sent by the other Gym Leaders, wouldn't they have known that our Pokemon were probably tired?"

"I do believe the Accord would have forbidden it from attacking you directly, sir, or your Pokemon. It seemed to want something with the device that you call the Poked-" Mr. Jennings was interrupted as his phone began ringing, and he apologized and answered it. The conversation didn't last longer than two minutes, but Mr. Jennings did not look happy at the end. "I'm afraid there is bad news. Most, if not all, of our records appear to have been taken. Without records, we don't even know how many people there are, who the prisoners are, what they're in jail for, who owns what, how much grain and fruit we have, or almost anything else we need to run this place effectively. It's almost too much- too much to-"

Mr. Jennings collapsed after. Ash called for a medic.

Mr. Jennings came to in about an hour, and it seemed like he was going to be fine after some rest, thankfully.

That was more than what could be said for their attempt at governance.

 **A/N: And so, we have the ending of the Marley arc. In case you don't know, Giselle was the obnoxious girl Ash met in _The School of Hard Knocks!_ where he mentioned he thought she was pretty... though he never has overtly for anyone else.**

 **It occurs to me that this arc was a bit short and didn't allow for that much world building or character development, but this was sort of the beginning and the other arcs will be longer.**

 **While I do know that a lot of things haven't been explained, this being a mystery fanfic and all, but we are done with one whole arc here and thanks for reading up till now, and I would like to know what you guys have thought of this chapter and the story so far, so do drop a review sharing what you thought it was like.**


	10. VS Thomdolt I

**A/N: Fenrir's Phantom, I didn't mind the suggestion at all, just that I have sort of thought of a few things already, but I do like other suggestions also!**

Thomdolt, the second Gym Leader, did not look very impressive at all. True, he was well past pushing six feet, but he had an unremarkable bland face, and his clothes were neat and ordered, but otherwise much indistinguishable from the clothes of his factory workers: a white shirt whose sleeves could be rolled back, and black trousers with a belt and several pockets for various tools.

The only thing that set him apart was that his shirt was spotless and bright, unlike the workers whose were dull and stained from the coal smoke and other pollutants emitted by his factories.

Much like Thomdolt himself, his territory was not impressive. It included Route 205 and Cinnamon City, however the bulk of it was made of the Industrial Area, a huge swath of factories that doubled up as a port where everything that was manufactured was placed on ships and sent to other parts of Galea by the fifth Gym Leader, Wade.

Or at least, that was how it normally went. There had been a newcomer to the eight Gym Leader's thirty-two years of uninterrupted reign, and Marley had recently been deposed of. Most of the other Gym Leaders currently accused Wade of being the one who had caused this change, and so the docks were currently empty and trade had been halted, at least by sea routes.

He was currently waiting for a phone call regarding the matter to conference with the others. Phone calls were always the Gym Leaders preferred method of communication as they were loathe to leave their territories where they were sovereign.

"Sir, the conference is online," one of his workers said. Thomdolt never bothered learning their names, they all pretty much looked the same to him in their ragged outfits, save for his highest officers who were distinguished by their conspicuously cleaner uniforms.

Thomdolt's office was quite Spartan, though of course it was spotless clean. Two phones had been set up, one showed Selena, and the other Linnea, the fourth Gym Leader. She was a short, though pretty enough woman with long green hair tied up and wearing an equally extravagant kimono.

None of them seemed to have aged a second in the last thirty-two years.

"So, what are we doing, besides boycotting Wade?" Thomdolt asked. "And are you even sure that he's responsible?"

"As sure as I can be," Selena said. "I told you about the Pokedex earlier. Whoever did this was able to get the Elite Four's recordings, and mess with the barrier. As we all know, the barrier has always been weak near the ocean, because it is almost impossible to regulate millions of gallons of water actively trying to flow out. The water is allowed to run out and mix with water from oceans outside Galea, though no living thing and most inanimate objects too cannot cross it. It means that the barrier is still weaker compared to other areas though, so he may have found a way to manipulate it as his realm includes most of the ocean."

"Pah," Thomdolt said. "He always had sympathy for the Elite Four and regret for what we did."

"He has denied any involvement though," Linnea said. "And I fail to see what he gains through this…"

"I suppose we'll just find out later," Selena said. "The main deal is what we are to do to this Ash Ketchum. As you are no doubt aware, he is not bound by the constraints of the Accord as we are. I would say that our immediate action is to boycott selling anything to his domain, and as you, Thomdolt, make most of our manufactured goods, and Linnea controls the majority of our harvests, his people will starve eventually until he comes to terms with us."

"That sounds like the opposite of what we should be doing," Thomdolt said. "If we starve him out, he'll just be forced to attack us. And if he's being manipulated like a puppet, nothing is going to stop him from carrying out his campaign against us, which will start with me as my territory borders his."

"Then it would best that you avoid him," Linnea said. "Don't let him challenge you. I doubt you'll be up for the mark."

Thomdolt snarled. "I am more prepared for him than that sloth Marley! If he does challenge me, I will not be defeated!"

There was a reason for Thomdolt's anger. He was always seen as a weak Trainer by the others, mainly because he hadn't gained his Gym Badge by winning a battle like the others.

No, Thomdolt belonged to a long family line from a society known as the Assassins, who had several centuries ago perfected a toxin that would bypass the wards that the Badges used to protect their masters when ingested, and had so contributed to the fall of the Heiro Dynasty. They had subsequently set up a fortress that still stood, called the Gliscor's Nest, and were able to retain a bit of autonomy due to the political instability of the time and by threatening to kill the Gym Leaders. Eventually though they were hunted down and sent into obscurity and poverty at the margins of society, with Thomdolt's family being one of the last of the existing line.

When Thomdolt's father died when he was just sixteen, he passed on the knowledge of making the poison to him. Thomdolt then disguised himself as a servant and worked in the former Gym Leader's household as a tea server for six years before he got his chance and slipped what he had made into her wine glass. While it is normal for rulers in various places to have their food tasted, the Gym Leaders had not generally done so in that time as they thought their Badges would protect them and that the Assassins were but a distant memory.

Once she was dead and the Badge unclaimed, Thomdolt took it.

He knew though what the other Gym Leaders, and the rest of Galea in general thought of him. That he had won his Badge not through battle, but through cowardice.

Not to mention the others were no doubt frightened of him, and of anyone who could potentially kill them, never mind that the Accord prevented them from killing, kidnapping, or imprisoning each other. As such all of them probably had their food tasted as a precaution.

"I can't even deal with him in that way," Thomdolt said. "He's already a Gym Leader, and what we can do against him is now quite limited. This problem wouldn't have happened, Selena, if you had just lent Marley a Pokemon like he had asked for."

"Oh really?" Selena asked. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Marley also ask the two of you for help in that regard? Why didn't you give him one of your Pokemon?"

"Well, I raise my Pokemon with care, and I wouldn't want someone else to-" Linnea said.

"And I wouldn't want anyone else taking the creatures which I with so much effort trained-" Thomdolt began.

"Exactly," Selena said, interrupting both of them. "We all thought that. And that is why Marley fell. We can't do anything about that now."

"In that case," Thomdolt said, "I'll gladly accept a challenge from this Ash Ketchum. He won't be able to prevail against me, not with my special rule."

"Perhaps," Selena said. "Then again, he could just as well defeat you completely. Are you sure it wouldn't be safer and more prudent to hide?"

Thomdolt snorted. "I'm not scared of a child."

"Have you been training hard then?" Linnea asked.

Thomdolt's arrogance seemed to go down a notch. "Perhaps not as much as I should have, I was busy with the factory work and all, but I am certain I'm much more of a match for him than Marley was."

"So be it," Selena said.

"But, this doesn't solve our other problem," Linnea said. "How did this child get here in the first place? Is not the barrier weakened? What is His Majesty doing about this?"

Selena rolled her eyes. "I cannot reach him. Telephones don't work in his domain, and the last message I got from him was over two years ago. He's probably far too busy playing with his concubines to notice anything of what's going on, as usual, leaving us, well, mostly me, to deal with this problem." She then signed off.

Thomdolt and Linnea didn't. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Linnea asked.

"Yes," Thomdolt said. "Selena's plan of starving this new ruler's land is going to end up badly. Much better than that is we talk to him directly and negotiate a deal."

"She is not going to like that," Linnea said.

"Yes," Thomdolt said, "but there isn't much she can do about it. I suppose we should place the call right now."

The screen previously showing Selena was now showing a loading screen, as it attempted to connect to the telephone that had previously belonged to Marley.

 **A/N: As for bringing someone else in, that's probably going to happen later, maybe after the Thomdolt arc. I thought of bringing Team Rocket because they're in every single episode, but I can consider others as well. Also, the assassins mentioned are based off the ancient Order of the Assassins, who killed in a manner similar to how Thomdolt did and lived in various fortresses, their headquarters being at Alamut or 'The Eagle's Nest.'**


	11. VS Thomdolt II

**A/N: chaosspeer, thanks. I tried to make it original, though I should admit that it is based off another book, though rather loosely called _The Keys to the Kingdom_ and you might notice several similarities between it and this fanfic, but many will end there. It is also sort of based off of _Pokemon Conquest_ in a way, I guess.**

The thing about revolutions is that they're often overblown. While the revolutionaries may sing and write about reform and change, when the dust has settled one finds that no matter who wins, very little changes.

Mr. Jennings reflected on that. He had expected great change when a new ruler came, and had for the many decades served under Marley dreamed of how it would be.

It wasn't that Sir Ash was incompetent, he told himself, only that he was currently too young to handle things even during a good time. And this was certainly not a good period of time. Especially not with all the records gone.

They had gone to the old archives, or at least, Ash and Mr. Jennings went. Pikachu was enjoying being massaged and just generally being treated like a prince by the staff. Sir Ash had mistaken the archives for a garbage dump the first time and asked where the archives were supposed to be. The place had been made out of decorative wood but had gotten moldy over all those years and a section at the back was declared too unsafe to walk into.

At least half of the material in there was unreadable. Some of the records were useful, like one detailing various business transactions the region had done with other Gym Leaders, but most of the others were too outdated to be of any use to them.

There was something that piqued up Ash's interest thought. It was a sketch of what looked like a woman kneeling on the ground, with eight rays of light emanating from something that was held in front of her. It stood out as it wasn't moldy and seemed to be the only thing in the library properly taken care of. "What's that supposed to be?"

"Oh that?" Mr. Jennings asked. "That is merely a sketch of the first Champion, Sir Ash. I do believe Lord Marley purchased it himself for quite a sum to decorate the library some time ago. I guess it was the only thing he remembered to have ordered dusted regularly."

Ash looked at Mr. Jennings with a confused look. It was then that Mr. Jennings realized that just because every child in Galea knew about the first Champion, didn't meant that Sir Ash did. "Uh, well, the story goes that approximately three thousand years ago, Galea was in a constant state of war as the Gym Leaders fought each other and attempted to control more land and territory. Until a trainer came along, and over a period of over a decade, managed to defeat all eight and united the region under one rule. Legends say that she-"

"She?" Ash asked. The sketch obviously showed a woman, but Ash still felt the need to ask this.

"Why yes, it was definitely a woman," Mr. Jennings said. "Is that so hard to believe? Does where you come from have no female Trainers?"

"No," Ash said. "It's not like that. I mean, there are even pretty powerful ones like Cynthia."

"Well, anyway, what the Gym Badges are supposed to be and where they come from was always a mystery, but it is said that when all were united something happened, and so she became the first Elite Four Champion. There are hundreds of stories about her, but around fifteen hundred years ago she vanished from history, leading many to believe she has died. Since then, there has not been another Champion as far as I know. Of course, this Eighth Gym Leader, whoever he is, is truly arrogant going around calling himself 'His Majesty the Emperor' when that title is truly reserved only for the Elite Four Champion."

Even Ash, who wasn't that good with math, knew that something was up. "She seems to have lived way longer than she should have."

"All the Gym Leaders can, apparently," Mr. Jennings said. "A side effect of having the Badges, or at least I think so."

"By the way then," Ash said, "Selena mentioned the Elite Four, and my Pokedex only has four voices in it. What happened to the current Elite Four Champion? Or are there only four members in Galea?"

"No, there are the Elite Four- though I suppose maybe the Elite Five technically but everyone says Elite Four for some reason anyway, also had the Elite Four Champion with them, but as far as I remember after the first Champion left there had not been a single new one crowned for some reason. There were rumors a new one had been appointed just before the spatial-temporal barrier around Galea was formed, but that might have been just a rumor."

Mr. Jennings' phone began ringing. "Uh, excuse me, Sir Ash- let me take this call."

After fifteen seconds, he cut the phone. "Sir Ash, there is another phone call to you from the Gym Leaders. Apparently Thomdolt, and Linnea, the second and fourth Gym Leaders would like to talk to you."

"Can they do something like with that Porygon-Z again?" Ash asked.

Mr. Jennings frowned. "I do not know, Sir Ash. We have tried fixing the problems using a firewall, but as of now, they haven't been tested yet. It might be a risk."

"I- I think I'll hear them out," Ash said. "But have everything in our database backed up just in case."

"Already done," Mr. Jennings said. "Now, I think you might want to fly over there. They may be thieves, but they are still Gym Leaders, after all, and even Marley wouldn't keep them waiting unnecessarily long."

* * *

Ash flew over to his new room, where there was an assistant who had helped move another telephone inside, with two people on screen. One of them was a really tall person, and the other a moderately beautiful woman.

Ash sat down after checking to make sure there wasn't snot on his face (the thought always disturbed him for some reason) and sat down.

The tall person, who Ash guessed was Thomdolt, snorted. "Is that it? I knew he said child, but I was still expecting more."

"Must you always be so rude?" Linnea asked. "There's no need to talk like that, even to your enemies."

"Pah," Thomdolt said. "Speak plainly, or don't bother at all. Here's the deal child, you may have beaten Marley, but you will not last long if neither of us start selling you things. If you're at war with my domain, there will be no medicine, no metals for your forges or ships, and without Linnea there will be no grain for you people to eat. Not for long at least."

"We do grow crops though," Ash said, frowning.

"Only a token amount," Linnea said. "You will not last for longer than a few months without my help. And if you attempt to convert part of your forests into farmland, and accelerate growth using your Gym Badge, well, you'll displace a large amount of Pokemon, and even the Badges and the land have their limits as to how far they can go."

"We are offering a rather simple proposal though," Thomdolt said. "We can't fight you or challenge you, but you can do it to us, which is the annoying bit to us. So, we want you to sign the Accord, and make yourself like one of us and unable to challenge us and assuage our fears, and if you do so, we will continue trading with you."

"I can't agree to that," Ash said. "I just want to go home."

"Then starvation it is then," Linnea said. "Though I guess _you_ in particular won't starve, but you don't strike me as the type of ruler that will allow his subjects to die due to food shortages. You will eventually realize that you'll have to give up."

"Or, I can defeat you," Ash said. "I challenge both of you to a Gym Battle!"

Thomdolt sneered. "Nice try child, but the rules governing the Badges were made before writing was invented, let alone computers. A challenge made over phone at this distance doesn't count. And you will not be able to defeat me anyway."

"We'll see about that," Ash retorted, sounding far more confident than he really felt.

Both Thomdolt and Linnea signed off at that.

Once Mr. Jennings got there, Ash told him what had happened.

"This is not good," Mr. Jennings said. "We won't last for long."

"Wait," Ash said. "If they produce stuff that we need, don't we also make something that they'd need to?"

"Uh, well, we mostly grow crops too cold for Linnea's region to accommodate, mainly to serve a bit of variety, and several hand-crafted products of the highest quality!" Mr. Jennings said with pride. "But I don't think any of them are necessarily essentials unfortunately," he said with considerably less enthusiasm.

"So, we're at war with them then?" Ash guessed.

"I suppose so," Mr. Jennings said. "Oh dear- we need to double the number of your food tasters then, Sir Ash."

"What for?" Ash asked. His food, Ash noticed, was already tasted before given to him, but he hadn't bothered asking about it before- though when he thought about it, it seemed strange if the Irresolute Badge could neutralize poisons.

"Do you not remember what I told you about Thomdolt?" Mr. Jennings asked.

Ash tried hard to remember. Mr. Jennings and other people coached him daily on matters of what happened in the rest of Galea and important things regarding the other Gym Leaders. "Didn't he win- by poisoning the older Gym Leader?"

"Yes, about thirty-four years ago Lady Falmouth had been found poisoned, and Thomdolt took over, later taking part in the rebellion against the Elite Four," Mr. Jennings said.

Ash frowned. "Wait, that doesn't fit with what Gulliver said when he mentioned honey changing to poison or something."

"The Badges can eliminate most poisons," Mr. Jennings said. "Save for two. One is made by a mixture of Arbok venom, Seviper venom, and Victreebel acid. As you can imagine, that smells and is easy to detect and no one would willingly ingest it. The other is some unknown formula used by Thomdolt which is much harder to notice as it is both tasteless and odorless."

"But he can't kill me, right?" Ash asked.

"True, but why take chances, after all , who knows if he's found a loophole?" Mr. Jennings said as if he was talking to a small, reluctant child. "And if Thomdolt survived, who says more people of the Assassins haven't? They would not be bound by such rules if they existed independently from him."

"Right. You said we wouldn't last long without food imports," Ash said. "Just how long?"

"I would need to do some inventory check to be sure, with the data gone and all. We can perhaps last longer if we accelerate our Miltank breeding program- I personally don't care for milk, but it will do," Mr. Jennings said. "And we can always turn over some land for more cultivation. But eventually we will have to strike at one of them." Mr. Jennings didn't mention the other option, letting enough people die to reduce the population so fewer mouths were there to feed, but he knew that neither he nor Ash would condone such an action. "Normally, we would have enough reserves to last three years, but Marley-"

"Was too lazy to bother doing so," Ash said, hearing it for almost the thousandth time since he had tried solving his region's problems.

"Indeed," Mr. Jennings said.

"So what's our best strategy for taking Thomdolt down then?" Ash asked.

"Merely give me some time, Sir, and I will get back to you with all these details," Mr. Jennings said.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, as always, and do review if you like. I always thought that Ash, or at least, the Pokemon series seemed to be misogynistic in some manner or the other (with not many powerful Pokemon trainers, and with the female leads almost always doing Contests or things that didn't involve battling) so I wrote a bit hinting some of it.**

 **Also, while I've been able to update once a week up till now, we will be going on hiatus for at least one week due to the real world getting in between. Thanks for being patient though!**


	12. VS Thomdolt III

**A/N: chaosspeer, I just wanted to point out where I got the idea from, though honestly that book series is so esoteric that no one has even written a Pokemon crossover with it. That said, this also does sort of borrow from Pokemon Conquest as well in a way, though with a lot more violence and gore. If anyone has read the books they've probably noticed the similarities already and if so- well, do know that quite a bit has been changed though.**

Ash squinted at the funny lines drawn before him. They had managed to salvage a map showing Thomdolt's domain in detail, though it was a very old one and Mr. Jennings was explaining what had changed over the years.

"See, this place used to be a meadow," Mr. Jennings said. "But it was turned into an Industrial Complex fifty years ago before Thomdolt came to power under Lady Falmouth. Aside from that there aren't many things to note."

"Pika pika," Pikachu said.

"He's right," Ash said. "The more important thing is how we're going to get there."

Mr. Jennings raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on Ash's apparent ability to understand what his Pokemon were saying. He had heard stories of people with such ability of course, and Trainers could usually get a gist of what their Pokemon meant, though as far as he could tell Ash mainly seemed to just be able to guess well rather than literally understand his Pikachu word for word.

"The river would be an easy way to access it, but that opens up below into Wade's domain, and above into Linnea's. We'd have to enter the ocean to go through Wade's domain, but as far as our sources tell us the river has been blockaded as Wade is being cut off from supplies much as we are," Mr. Jennings said.

"The Gym Leaders are suspecting Wade of helping me, right?" Ash said. "Or they think that he was the one who brought me here?"

"Yes, but try as we might we cannot seem to contact him," Mr. Jennings said.

"He hasn't replied to any phone calls either," Ash said.

"That might be on purpose," Mr. Jennings said. "The telephone lines servers all lie in Selena's domain, so she can easily intercept them. As I take it, Wade seems to be saying that he didn't do any of the things he's being accused of, so if he does want to help us, he won't be calling us."

"With the blockade though that's just not of much use anyway," Ash said. "We could always just fly."

"Not if there is an air barrier," Mr. Jennings said. "It is very difficult, Sir Ash, but possible, for a Gym Leader to completely barricade themselves inside their domains. An overland route through Route 205 would be the best option, but to do that we would have to cross the strip of ocean in-between the two, and then the rest of Route 204 which falls under-"

"Pika pika," Pikachu said, interrupting them, pointing to a specific area of the map.

"What is that?" Ash asked.

Mr. Jennings frowned and said, "This map is very old, Sir Ash, and some things seem to have faded and there quite a number of stains, though if memory serves correctly…." he trailed off and then said, "I think that it is the Gliscor's Nest. It was the home of the ancient Assassins and though as far as I remember it still stands, it is nothing much more than a ruin. Alexios III ravaged it over a hundred years after his dynasty had established themselves, and slew everyone he found. After that, he was apparently given various gifts from the other Gym Leaders as thanks- don't look so surprised, while there was always infighting amongst the Gym Leaders, they hated someone who could kill and poison them without them knowing even more than they hated each other."

"Wouldn't he have rebuilt it?" Ash asked. "Thomdolt, I mean?"

"I don't know whether he really puts that much stock into his heritage," Mr. Jennings said. "The other Gym Leaders always thought he was training a new order of Assassins, though I do not believe that they would be of any use with the Accord's restrictions, and there has been no evidence showing that he was."

"Pika pii pii," Pikachu said, exasperated, and pointed to something near the Gliscor's Nest.

Ash frowned and took a closer look at the map "There's some sort of line coming from their, but it's a dotted line and comes all the way towards Route 204."

Mr. Jennings frowned. "It is very faint though. What could it mean…" he frowned, and after a while said, "Curse Selena for deleting our records! It takes forever to shift through pages for information. I remember reading something regarding history. There was a time when the Assassins had been attacked before Alexios III, but had managed to escape through some sort of 'rat hole' as they called it before regrouping. Could there perhaps be a tunnel leading out of the Gliscor's Nest?"

Ash smiled. "If there is, then that would be the perfect way to get there."

Pikachu wore a triumphant smile.

"But Sir Ash," Mr. Jennings said, "even if this did exist, it doesn't mean that it _still_ exists. And if we can find out about it, there's no reason that Thomdolt wouldn't if he was part of their order. This could very well be blocked."

"But if it was, I could move it using the Badge," Ash said.

"True, but the problem remains that the Gym Badges are dominant only within their own domains and lose considerable power when taken outside," Mr. Jennings said.

"But, if there was an air barrier I could deflect it somehow, right?" Ash asked.

"Yes, but I don't know how powerful your Fearow is and if that would be enough, you see, you have but a single Badge right now and that might not be powerful to make a large enough hole for your Fearow to escape," Mr. Jennings said. He then stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Though it does occur to me that if part of the tunnel lies in your territory, there isn't anything that Thomdolt could have done to block it, and Marley certainly didn't. It could be unsafe though."

"It seems like our best shot," Ash said. "By the way, did you get any more information regarding Thomdolt's Pokemon?"

"No, sir, a good chunk of our data is gone, and anyway we had very few records on Thomdolt's Pokemon anyway, because as far as we can tell, he has never once battled anyone," Mr. Jennings said.

Ash did however, think based on what Thomdolt had done that he would have at least one Poison type Pokemon. To counter this he had tried looking for a Steel or Psychic type, but there were none in his domain, so he instead went with a Poison type so at least it couldn't be poisoned, a Skorupi. He had also been training every day, unlike Marley, in anticipation for the battle.

"In that case, would he be really weak?" Ash asked.

"I suppose we can hope," Mr. Jennings said, though deep down he didn't believe it. Thomdolt wasn't as lazy as Marley, and he must have anticipated fighting someone sooner or later.

"I think the tunnel should be our best shot then," Ash said.

"Hmm," Mr. Jennings said. "I would like for you to take some Pokemon familiar with tunnels, Sir Ash, in case something goes wrong. A secret tunnel… it is like something outside of a fairy tale. And a tad bit too convenient. In the meantime, we should continue trying to rebuild and collecting further information."

"And I need to get back to training then," Ash said.

* * *

Training usually consisted of fighting a series of Pokemon trained for that purpose within the main Gym. They weren't particularly powerful, and Ash could see how it could quickly become monotonous- which was probably why Marley had stopped trying- but he knew that it was necessary if he was going to take on Thomdolt, or any of the other Gym Leaders for that matter.

Today though, he cut his training session short so he could meet up with Gulliver. With all the things going around, Ash hadn't talked to him in the last couple of weeks because there had just been no time with all the things that needed his attention, but he had wanted to take some time out to see who was perhaps his only friend in Galea.

Gulliver was standing outside, and wearing a strange red robe decorated with dragons. "Hey there!" he said, before his face fell and he started mumbling something else that went something along the lines of "Sir Ash…" before Ash interrupted him.

"Hey, there's no need for that," Ash said. "Sorry I couldn't meet with you earlier- I mean, I didn't even know someone could be so busy."

"No need to be sorry or nothin'," Gulliver said. "I mean, it's actually been a real hoot since ya won! I've been going around, and I can do pretty much whatever I want now- 'cuz they think that I'm your right-hand man or something."

"So what have you been up to?"

"Oh, first thing I did was go back to my other pals and tell them all about what happened," Gulliver said. "Then I thought that I'd take a few walks around the city and relax a little, and it was great! I mean, people handed over their best food, and rooms, and all for free!"

"Pika pi?" Pikachu asked, confused.

Ash's face fell. "Wait- what do you meant that you got it all for free?"

"Oh, you know, how all the best officer of the Gym Leaders can waltz in and take whatever they want? I mean, we used to hate it but the tables have turned and all."

Ash looked horrified. "But- you can't just go around doing that! That's stealing!"

Gulliver looked confused. "But- technically speaking you own everything. I mean, _you're_ the government, right?"

"But- you can't just steal stuff," Ash said and he regained some of his composure. "Okay, I don't want you doing any more of that, and please try to get the bills from whatever you took. I guess the treasury is going to be paying for them."

"Alrighty," Gulliver said, rubbing his neck with his hand.

Ash however, knew that their treasury was severely depleted, or at least, Mr. Jennings had told him that, as Ash had nearly collapsed when he had seen what the realm's accounts looked like. He would just have to manage somehow though, especially since the other parts of Galea were boycotting their goods.

"But I wasn't just foolin' around, ya know," Gulliver said. "I got a bunch of my pals, and they seemed really riled up to join ya, so we took a few Pokeballs, caught some Pokemon, and we've been training just like you did back then."

Just then, eight similarly dressed people walked in behind Gulliver. There seemed to be at least a few years difference between their ages, and all of them looked nervous.

Ash shook each of their hands, and they all bowed, and Ash tried his hardest to memorize their names correctly.

"We've all be trainin', and I heard that you were going to give Thomdolt a what-for," Gulliver said. "So we want to join ya, of course!"

"That's going to be really dangerous guys," Ash said. He appreciated the help, but he knew that the people here, or at least the Gym Leaders, were far crueler than even the bad guys at home, and he didn't want to lose anyone to them. "And oh yeah, Marley's men didn't do anything really bad to your friends, did they?"

"Huh? Nah, they had them locked up for a while but they weren't hurt badly or nothin' like that. And yeah it's a risk, but once you challenge Thomdolt, he won't be able to do anything to us," Gulliver said.

"Pika pii piii pi," Pikachus said, and mimed drinking something and falling over.

"He might not even try to fight," Ash said. "And he's a big user of poison. I can't challenge him until I'm face-to-face with him."

"Eh, it's alright," Gulliver said. "After all, what're friends for?"

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, as always. On a side note now, sadly my workload is going to just increase from now on so there will be no more weekly updates and this story will update whenever I get the time to write another chapter for the next couple of months.**

 **If you liked, do please review!**


	13. VS Thomdolt IV

Thomdolt was not a very sentimental person. Unlike his forefathers, he held no real love for the old Assassins. He remembered the stories that his father had told him though. About how the Assassins had been feared throughout the ages, until word began to leak out on exactly how they killed and that they relied on poison, a method that could be avoided by using food tasters. With that as his conviction, Alexios III had come to avenge Alexios I's death, and killed everyone in the Gliscor's Nest down to the children in their mother's wombs.

Some agents had survived of course, having been on missions elsewhere, but suddenly found themselves lost of purpose, or otherwise went for revenge by killing any Gym Leader they could before being disposed of once their treachery was eventually discovered. One of his ancestors had been smarter and continued playing his role as a house servant through the ages.

Thomdolt's father had been keen to see the Assassins restored, and hoped that Thomdolt would one day accomplish such. Thomdolt, though didn't have much desire for restoring them. True, he had gotten his power through their methods, but he didn't share his father's zeal. He was, he reasoned, his own man now, and could make his decisions without feeling burdened by his father's wishes.

Among them was the idea to rekindle the Assassins, something that Thomdolt knew he was not going to do. The Assassins had no place in this new Galea- a Galea in which peace was supposed to last for an eternity under the guidance of the eight Gym Leaders, and their resurgence would only serve to destabilize his rule. The secret of the Assassin's legendary venom would remain with him. He had even refused to sell it to Selena, who had offered an obscene amount of riches for it. He had refused repeatedly, smug that he had an advantage that she didn't.

He had also made no attempt to continue his lineage. He saw no need to, despite his father stressing the importance of it, since he was immortal so long as he held on to the Hemlock Badge, and the secrets of the Assassins would rest safe with him forever. He did not need an heir as his father had repeatedly stressed on his deathbed. It had been different in earlier times, Thomdolt reasoned to himself.

After all, the average reign of a Gym Leader in Galea all together was about two years before someone else overthrew them. Lady Falmouth had been an exception at having lasted eighteen years. The current Gym Leader's record of lasting thirty-two years was an astounding feat, something only possible due to their coordination and control which prevented new challengers from appearing.

As such, what was the point of having heirs? It would first of all involve finding a wife- and he couldn't imagine sharing his power with another person, and no doubt a wife would prove meddlesome in the his governance of the realm. Not to mention it would be even worse if he had several heirs who would bicker over their rights and inheritance, and in the end they would never inherit as he would endure forever and he would simply watch them grow old and die.

That was probably why none of the others had married or had children either. What was the point when one's rule was to last forever?

He was snapped out of his reverie by one of his higher officers interrupting him and asking him to look over a form.

With the sea route now out of question, Thomdolt now had to organize his goods to be delivered by land, which was turning into a painstakingly complex practice requiring his supervision in person of the caravans as they set out on their routes. With the sea, he only had to worry about Wade, but with the land, he was going into multiple other Gym Leader's territories, and of course, they all wanted to take this opportunity to take taxes on whatever he was carrying. There was even a chance, Thomdolt knew, that they might just outright seize his goods. And then there was the matter of who would drive the caravans, which Pokemon they would carry, and an endless stream of other matters that made his head hurt.

This had not been a problem with Wade, as they had known their dependence on each other, and Thomdolt even sort of had a bond of trust with him, though that was now broken. Thomdolt, like most of the others, thought Wade responsible for bringing Ash Ketchum to Galea.

His highest officers were usually those who had been marginalized by Lady Falmouth earlier or fellow servants whom he had known well, and Thomdolt had not tried very hard to quash rumors about how he had gotten his Gym Badge.

"Sir," one of them said, a middle-aged man named Yan. Unlike Marley, Freyja, or Selena, Thomdolt did not think it was prudent to place all of your faith into a single right-hand man. He kept two for this purpose, the other a woman named Tethera, who was currently near the border where this new Ash's domain was, scouting for information on his whereabouts. "Tethera has not reported any activity. It does not appear that the first Gym Leader is trying to come to us via the skies. As for the other areas, we have received no report."

"I doubt he will try to come through any route like that," Thomdolt said. "Most likely he will try to come through the passage leading to the Gliscor's Nest. I'm certain he will come across reference to it soon enough."

"Then… then shouldn't we try and stop him?" Yan asked.

"I already have measures in place if he tries that," Thomdolt said. "I've laid various traps within the Gliscor's Nests, spears dipped in my special venom, containers releasing venomous gas, and other works."

Yan looked confused. "You mean to kill him? Does not the Accord forbid such?"

"If it is possible, well, the Accord only forbids us _explicitly_ killing one another so I can't exactly order his food poisoned, but if I were to leave a trap for him and he just happened to, by chance trigger it and die, well then that wouldn't be something I planned, would it not technically be not my fault?" Thomdolt said, "I do not see why it wouldn't be possible for a trap to kill him… though it occurs to me that while the Badges cannot neutralize the venom, they would stop the spear itself and the poison wouldn't enter his bloodstream. And I am uncertain if the venom will even work if inhaled... I have only ever heard of it working when ingested. Then again, his Badge will be weaker in my domain…." He then cocked his head. "Then again, it will still retain quite a bit of power." He shrugged. "Truth be told, I don't know if it can- or will kill him or not. If it does, fine, and if it doesn't, it would at the very least it might take out some of his followers. He will not be able to best me at battling, not with the Hemlock Badge's power and its special rule."

"You are certain of defeating him, master?"

Yan trembled under the gaze that Thomdolt gave him. "Like the rest of the continent, do you truly believe I am incapable of battling? That like that sloth Marley, I would cower and hide and run from this Ash so that he cannot challenge me?" He shook his head. "No, if he does manage to survive the Gliscor's Nest, I will be waiting here, ready for him with my Pokemon, and he will be defeated."

"So… you don't want any patrols set out? Or any soldiers ready to intercept him?"

"Put patrols in place. I want to know where he's moving," Thomdolt said. "As for soldiers, no, though we should make sure that he doesn't start burning his way through town or harming our factories with widespread looting."

Yan scurried off, leaving Thomdolt alone with his thoughts. It occurred to the Gym Leader that there was a possibility- though extremely slim in his opinion- that he could be defeated. A child who would avenge him might have been nice to have now that the situation had changed... and he suddenly felt as if he had missed on something big his entire life. To top it off, Thomdolt's father had been the only person whom Thomdolt had truly ever cared about, and Thomdolt knew that by not having an heir, one of his father's dying wishes would be left unfulfilled. Thinking about that just depressed him.

He finally decided to snap out of it and bury his feelings as he concentrated on his work.

* * *

The entrance to the tunnel was in a remote area in the woods. Ash and Mr. Jennings had left for it discreetly, as Mr. Jennings didn't want to publicize the fact that Ash was going to be absent.

"Well, you see, the Badge is necessary as its presence helps build a sense of law and order, and if the people were to learn that you were absent, and with the food shortages around…. well, I'm not exactly sure what would happen, though anarchy and rebellion usually ensue if a Gym Leader is absent for too long," Mr. Jennings said.

"Yeah, but I'm not like them, right?" Ash asked. He of course, had a mentality that defined himself as one of the 'good guys' and rather straightforwardly thought that such a thing would be a problem that only someone like Marley would have.

"Sir, no matter how bad Marley's government was, it did have something good about it- stability- the most underrated of government virtues," Mr. Jennings said. "Political turmoil is as old as the Badges themselves in Galea, sir, and to have thirty-two years of the same ruler is an anomaly not commonly found. Most of the people are just aware that Marley has recently been overthrown, and while the changes we've enacted have been well met, our other measures in trying to avoid a famine for example, by limiting rations, aren't so popular. All many of them would really understand is that suddenly there's a lot less food, and just when there has been a regime change."

Ash paused to glance at Pikachu, who seemed to be pretty happy. Though they were walking in a part of the woods with no well known trail, it was not much different from Ash's earlier adventures when he wandered around with Brock, Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, Tracy, Selena, and Cheren. Thinking of them brought back a strong wave of nostalgia.

"And, not all of them have such good intentions," Mr. Jennings continued. "As with any feudal system, sir, there are always the unruly group of nobles ready to seize power. One can't blame them though, for power is almost everything in Galea sir, and who would not want it when a time comes when it can be used to protect one's family and friends?"

"Do you have any family?" Ash asked.

"Only a granddaughter," Mr. Jennings said with a smile. What he didn't mention was that she was currently residing with a nanny since he had been far too busy with his duties under Marley to take care of her- and even more busy with all the chaos that had come with Sir Ash; because he knew that the last thing the boy needed was yet another thing to worry about. Perhaps, when he would finally retire (he couldn't in good conscious do it now) and leave the running of the realm to other people, then they could spend some time together.

They finally reached their destination, what was a small nondescript hole jutting out of the natural rocky wall that blocked their view from Thomdolt's domain. Somewhere, behind that, was Thomdolt, preparing to receive Sir Ash's assault somehow.

The others, including Gulliver and his team, along with the crew of Pokemon they had assembled to assist in navigating and digging through the passageway if necessary that included a Dugtrio, a Zubat, and a Nincada; arrived later in other small groups to further reduce suspicion. The digging team may not have been the best that could have been formed, but it was the best that could be found with their limited supply of Pokemon.

"Now, I'll want to accompany all of you until the border between the two Domains," Mr. Jennings said. "I do believe Sir Gulliver here and his, ah, associates- will want to join you all the way. After you leave the Gliscor's Nest, there is a narrow passage that will take you below into the field below. After that, there should be a stream that I would suggest you take."

"I brought a bunch of Wailmers for us to ride on!" one of Gulliver's team said. "They're not very strong in battle, or swift swimmers, but the current'll take us where we want to go."

"It would be better than going by land," Mr. Jennings said, "though you should get off before you end up running into a barricade."

They entered the cave, with the Nincada using Flash to give out light. Nothing very interesting happened except for one time when they accidentally disturbed a colony of resting Zubats and all of them flew out of the cave.

Suddenly, Ash felt the Irresolute Badge vibrate and Ash stopped as if there was an invisible wall in front of him. He had once seen a documentary about Mightyena and how they marked their territory, and had seen how a Mightyena had stopped when it sniffed that it was in a place marked by another herd. It had looked about the place as if it had suddenly run into a fence.

Ash felt like that Mightyena. It felt as if a whole new planet awaited him a few paces away. Ash took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"We've crossed the border," Mr. Jennings muttered.

Ash suddenly felt dizzy. Something about this place just felt plain _wrong_. Though there was no change in the cave, it suddenly felt much more oppressive. The soil beneath his feet fell different.

 _I'm on foreign soil now,_ Ash thought. _This soil has a different master, and it doesn't answer to me._

As a matter of fact, the very air that he was breathing felt weird, because it listened to someone else. He glanced behind him… yes, behind him, that was where he should be, that was where he would be safe, back in his own territory.

He had almost taken two steps back when Pikachu pulled on his collar and he paused, remembering why he had come there.

While the Gym Badge did not want to leave its territory and did not want to be taken out of it, and was probably what was causing Ash to feel all of those things, but it was at the same time subservient to its master's will.

With a bit of effort, Ash turned around and walked ten paces. The overwhelming desire to run back dissipated, but he still felt vulnerable and incomplete, as if he was a Spoink who had lost its pearl.

Ash remembered that Mr. Jennings had told him that the Gym Leaders rarely left their territories. Now he understood why.

"Um, well, I wish you the best of luck, Sir Ash," Mr. Jennings said. He stepped forward. "And-"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off as there was a sudden _swoosh!_ as a trap had been triggered and a spear came out of a wall, embedding itself where Mr. Jennings' head had been.

Thankfully, the Dugtrio had not been idle and pulled Mr. Jennings below the ground, so it merely nicked his forehead.

Ash took a moment to see the spear, and saw that there was something dripping from its tip.

"Poison," Ash muttered, not sure how he knew it. Behind him, Mr. Jennings' wound was festering. "Heal!" Ash shouted, gripping his Badge tightly. The wound began to close, but the poison was still there. The Badge was useless against that kind of poison!

The Zubat they had brought along went and bit the wound, lapping up the blood. Ash was about to stop it, when he realized that it was sucking the venom out.

After a tense five minutes, it appeared that Mr. Jennings would be fine, but he had fallen unconscious and wasn't waking up.

"Second shock in a few weeks," Gulliver muttered. "He's strong, but 'e can only take so much."

He was carried away by the others where Ash hoped that he would recover.

"Do you still want to press on?" Gulliver asked. "There could be more traps."

Ash put a hand on a wall and another one on the Irresolute Badge. He then felt the walls of the cavern itself, which were foreign to the Badge, but the Badge had considerable power even in this place, and he could see several flaws where there were arrows or levers and other machinations. He intended to exploit those flaws.

"Yes," Ash said. "We go on."

 **A/N: Julie Togepi, I might consider that with Mr. Jennings, provided he survives. As for Misty, I'm still not sure as to who else I should bring along. It won't be during this arc, of course, but I do want to add someone else.**

 **Also, that bit about Mightyena kind of compares them to wolves. I don't think that's ever been mentioned that Mightyena mark their territory like dogs or wolves, but I thought it would be a close comparison given that they do travel in herds and seem like wolves (more like hyenas, but I thought close enough).**

 **Thanks for reading up till now, and do review if you liked!**


	14. VS Thomdolt V

**A/N: aldybaron, yes, I do base quite a bit off (which I've admitted as I'm a fan of and has driven quite a bit of this fanfic's plot) the Keys to the Kingdom, and Marley was heavily based off of Mister Monday as you could tell. Thomdolt isn't as heavily based off of Grim Tuesday though, and as we go along most of the Gym Leaders will have very little relation to the book counterparts.**

 **Julie Togepi, yeah, we'll see, but mainly after Thomdolt, and perhaps even after Linnea. I'm thinking of bringing in someone a bit late, but it seems like during Wade's arc will be way too long, so perhaps before. Anyway, I'm open to ideas.**

As they moved on, Ash was able to use his Badge to detect, avoid, and disable all of the traps they could find. He still felt uncomfortable though, and somewhere in the back of his mind he could still feel something tugging at him, as if his very domain was begging him to come back.

The walls soon changed from being natural jagged rock to being wood which at one time would have been smooth, but had been worn away due to years of misuse and had several holes. Avoiding these, and some other traps, they found that the tunnel opened into a large chamber.

It was here that Ash encountered his first problem. Namely, that there was a large trap laid out for him and he couldn't figure out how to disable it. Like he had done before, he had tried telling the Irresolute Badge what to do with his mind, but instead of something happening, it just vibrated uselessly in his hand. He didn't know what was wrong or why, but his attention fell on a side door.

"We're going to have to go around this place," Ash said. Their Zubat went ahead through the side door and Ash followed.

The place had been made of wood mostly and at some point of time might have looked homely enough, but now it just stank and large parts of it had collapsed. Even worse was the fact that Ash knew just what had happened in there and kept expecting to see a skeleton or something else as a remnant of the massacre that had occurred there long ago.

There weren't many Pokemon hanging around, just the usual Zubats. Ash did catch sight of some ghosts though and captured a Gastly for himself, thinking that the partial Poison type might be useful against Thomdolt.

As Ash wandered around some places, and ended up backtracking occasionally, he started getting the feeling that he was not alone. This could have possibly been due to some other Ghost types that would likely be wandering around the ruins, but as Pikachu pointed something out, Ash squinted his eyes and it took him a few seconds to realize what he was looking at and realized that it was due to another reason.

"Is that… a security camera?" Ash asked. The only thing visible of it was a small light blinking occasionally. Pikachu decided to take it out with a Thunderbolt.

"Golly, those are expensive," Gulliver said. "They only have them 'round the old Marley's Gym back home, but I guess that Thomdolt wouldn't be having any problems purchasing them with what he makes."

Ash however, was not really interested in know the financial details of Thomdolt's domain and more concerned on what it meant: that Thomdolt knew they were there.

As such, he kept expecting for a huge army of guards or a swarm of Pokemon to suddenly swoop down upon them. But it never came. They continued walking, and though there were several traps, Ash was able to disable most of them. Those he couldn't, they walked around.

"Hey! Look, a window!" someone shouted and motioned to a place where sunlight- something that nearly blinded them after hours of being in near-total darkness- came out. "We can get out from here." She made a beeline for it, before Ash called out,

"Wait! This fortress was made at the edge of a cliff! You can't just jump out the window!"

The girl stopped herself in time and took a good look down outside the window. She gulped.

Ash took a look too. It was only a few hours till sundown, and they were overlooking a large plain with the river that Mr. Jennings must have been talking about winding through. In the distance, he could make out a huge dark cloud near the horizon.

There didn't seem to be any people watching them though, and there was a herd of Sawsbuck feeding on some grass.

"Okay, I can use my Fearow to fly us all down there one by one," Ash said.

"Ya sure that's a good idea?" Gulliver asked. "What if there're people waiting to attack us once we get down?"

Ash considered the problem, and said, "That'll still be a problem no matter what we do. At least this way, Fearow can fly us up and down faster than it should pose a problem compared to climbing down."

They got down, with Ash going first since he had the strongest Pokemon and it would've been easy for him to fend off an attack if they were attacked on the ground, though no one bothered them. As each of them disembarked, they thanked Ash's Fearow.

"I think we should make camp," Ash said. "But first, let's explore the area and make sure there aren't any ambushes set up for us."

Their first leg of business was to go to the river and see if there was fresh water, and Pikachu got off Ash's shoulder and ran towards it with full speed, eager to take a nice swim, but stopped short suddenly fifty feet before the river and immediately turned into a feral position and began making hissing noises.

"What happened?" Ash asked. He took a few steps forward before Pikachu began making some more noises at him. "Is there something wrong with the river?"

It took Ash some time to notice it in the low light, but he noticed there was something odd with the water. It was flowing rather slowly, and had an odd tinge to it. The wind then picked up from the river, and Ash covered his nose as its putrid odor reached him.

"It smells like a sewer!" he exclaimed.

Beside him, Gulliver nodded. "Wait, how do you know what a sewer smells like?"

"I've been in a few," Ash confessed.

"Really?" Gulliver asked, interested. "Why?" He had been of course, used to thinking of Ash as a Gym Leader and couldn't imagine why someone like that would go into a sewer.

"Oh, there were lots of reasons," Ash said. "And lots of times. But why is the river like that?"

Just then, his Pokedex began beeping, and a message came up, simultaneously being read by those same four crackling voices:

 _The region under control by Thomdolt was once a lush, verdant region before the factories under Lady Falmouth came up. Thomdolt has greatly increased the number of them in order to increase his profits, and these dump their waste into the rivers and skies. Normally, as the river water flows into the sea, so he was bound by a treaty to nullify the waste using the Hemlock Badge. However, this arrangement has ended recently due to Wade's suspected involvement in bringing you over to Galea, and so Thomdolt has relocated currently to the northern part near the border in order to send his goods overland. As such, he is too far from his factories to mitigate the waste that they release into the land._

Ash's first thoughts weren't to process this information. Rather, they were to scream at the thing, "How! And why! How do you know all of that, and just who are you? I've talked to a lot of people on phones, and you don't sound like a live person making those noises at all, so you're using some sort of program. How do you know that Thomdolt is near the border, and why should I believe you? And does that mean that Wade didn't bring me here?"

There was only a single line as a response.

 _I know what I know is true and I wish for Thomdolt to fall._

Regardless of what Ash did next, the thing did not give off any other information.

Gulliver had been trying to look busy examining the grass to try and remove himself from the rather awkward scene when he noticed that it seemed to be wilting and had turned a nasty shade of yellow, a phenomenon was more and more apparent as his gaze moved towards the river.

"It's like he's poisoning everything," Gulliver muttered.

"Pika pii pii!" Pikachu said. Ash glanced up to where his friend was pointing, at what he had earlier mistaken for a storm cloud but was clearly something else instead.

"It's a giant… collection of smog," Ash muttered.

"I don't think it's comin' this way," Gulliver mused.

"Well, this puts using the Wailmer out of the question," Ash said. "We'll just have to go overland then."

Ash tried to pry his eyes away from a small body that was floating in the river. It looked like it was a Pokemon, probably swimming happily and freely in the water before it had been contaminated. He had seen enough for one day.

They then spent the rest of the evening setting up camp. They sort of patrolled the surrounding area but didn't find anything that looked threatening.

Ash spent some time trying to train his Gastly, but it turned out that it was rather weak and it mainly just hovered around playing pranks with the other questers and Ash's Pokemon instead of any real battling.

For a moment, Ash was reminded very strongly of his friends, and it seemed so easy to forget about all that he had to accomplish, and to just think of this as another journey.

The next day, Ash decided to assume, for now, that whoever was talking to him through the Pokedex had been right (though he made a mental note that it was not a wise idea to blindly trust someone who didn't even trust him enough to tell him who he-or she was) until they came upon a warehouse.

It had apparently been manned by some of Thomdolt's cronies, but they had all fled on their bicycles at the site of Ash and his team, and Ash didn't bother pursuing them. He released his Fearow to keep an eye on the skies for any trouble.

They had entered the warehouse to see that it was mostly empty, except for some bottles of water and some other odd snacks boxes. Before anyone tried any, Gulliver rather (valiantly?) volunteered to taste all of them to make sure that they weren't poisoned somehow.

Ash had mixed feelings about letting everyone take whatever they wanted. It felt like stealing to him, but at the same time, who owned the warehouse? The owners had run off, and it probably belonged to Thomdolt, or whoever held the Hemlock Badge, and if he won it was his and technically he only owed the money to himself but until then-

His thought process was interrupted by his Fearow landing, and it didn't seem like it had seen anything. This was something that everyone found disturbing. There was no army, no soldiers, nothing that seemed to be coming at them, even though it was obvious that Thomdolt knew they were coming for him.

It seemed that Thomdolt was content to wait for them to march all the way up to him.

Or perhaps, like Ash, Thomdolt really didn't have a choice. After all, if Ash decided to walk up to Thomdolt and decide that he didn't want to battle him and started doing the can-can at his front door, well, there was little that Thomdolt could do to stop him.

 **A/N: So, thanks for reading everyone! And as always, do review if you liked!**


	15. VS Thomdolt VI

Outside the warehouse, Ash decided to set up camp… and while this all went down he heard some scuffling from behind the warehouse and decided to check it out.

He smelled whatever it was long before he saw it- it was a rancid, unbearable smell. Take the worst smell you can think of, dirty socks, rotten vegetables, and gym shorts, mix them into a pot and let it fester for several days and that's the kind of smell that Ash got.

But at the same time, it was oddly familiar somehow, Ash thought as he saw the purple ooze crawl towards him which was responsible for the smell.

"Pika pii," Pikachu said.

"Yeah, it's just like mine," Ash said. Of course, he had had a Muk, not a Grimer which this was, but it still reminded him of home and how Professor Oak and Tracey always reacted when his Muk came out. "Hey there, little fella… I'm guessing you're hear 'cuz all of the pollution, right?"

He whipped out his Pokedex to see if it could still identify Pokemon.

 _Grimer, this Pokemon was said to be created when sludge on a polluted beach was exposed to moonlight. Their very presence signifies pollution on a scale that is intolerable to other Pokemon and to most humans. The number of Grimer per square mile, as a matter of fact, is used as an index of pollution by many nations such as Unova and Hoenn while evaluating the ecological impact of cities.  
_

The Grimer looked at Ash and Pikachu quizzically.

"Hey, if you want… do you want to come with us?" Ash asked and took out a Poke Ball. He kind of already felt attached to this Pokemon, especially with the fact that a Poison type couldn't be poisoned. It might make a good addition alongside his Gastly. He didn't know for sure what it was that Thomdolt did or what his special rule was, but his best guess (and Mr. Jennings agreed with him on this) was that it involved Poison type Pokemon or poisoning somehow. Ash reckoned if he had his own small army of Poison types it would put him at a lesser disadvantage when he fought Thomdolt than if he went at him with just his Pikachu and Fearow.

Grimer however, clearly had different plans as the moment Ash asked this it turned around and tried running away as fast as it could.

It didn't get far, however, before Ash zapped it and it fainted, allowing him to capture it with ease. It was clearly not a very strong Pokemon, and would need training along with the Gastly that Ash had caught.

Ash pinched his nose, it seemed as if the smell was still coming even from inside the Poke Ball. He didn't even know that was possible but he decided to ignore it as best as he could and went back to see that Gulliver was almost finished setting up camp.

"Where was ya?" Gulliver asked. "We didn't see ya and thought ya might be lost or somethin'."

"Nah, I caught a Grimer," Ash said. "I found one wandering around the back of the warehouse. Too bad I had to knock it out, you know, otherwise I would've loved to be able to train it right now."

Come to think of it, Ash thought, it was rather odd that he had been unable to pick up a single Potion or Antidote or any other sort of medicine despite the warehouse being full of almost everything else that someone might have were no such things such as universal Pokemon Centers in Galea.

"Just heal it then," Gulliver said, apparently not seeing what the problem was.

"With what?" Ash asked.

"Your Badge," Gulliver said.

"Wait- it can do that?" Ash asked. "And there are like- no side effects of healing?"

"Well, I ain't sure if it's y'know, instant or not or if there's a downside to doin' so, but from what I remember, yeah, you can use it to heal your Pokemon," Gulliver said. ""Cept when you're in an official gym battle o' course."

"Oh," Ash said. He then picked up the Poke Ball and whispered to it while clutching his Badge to heal his Grimer. His Poke Ball glowed blue slightly and twitched a few times in his hands like it did when a Pokemon was trying to break out, but it ended after a few seconds and Ash released his Grimer, which was as happy and energetic as when he had first captured it.

Gulliver and the others pinched their noses. "God that's an awful smell!"

"Yeah," Ash said.

"Pi piii pika pii pi," Pikachu said and covered its nose as well.

"I'm kind of used to it, I had one, or at least the evolved one," Ash said. "So I thought I'd train it. Come on, Grimer."

Ash took Grimer away from the camp so the others could put up dinner in piece- a dinner that was made entirely of things they had 'liberated' from the warehouse, and Ash found that he couldn't stop feeling bad about that. They had already eaten quite a bit of it, and so it was nearly pointless in trying to tell them to stop taking any more. He would have paid the store owner- except for the fact that the store owner had run away, and so he decided that he would pay the guy later.

But then as he sent out his Gastly it occurred to him that whoever the owner was, he or she probably wasn't the actual owner and it was probably Thomdolt. And he couldn't exactly give the money back to him once Thomdolt would be put in jail after Ash beat him, and that got him to thinking as to how long was he going to keep the Gym Leaders like Marley imprisoned? He wasn't sure if they deserved life imprisonment for what they did and even so, was life imprisonment going to be forever given that-

"Pika pi?" Pikachu asked him.

His Pokemon, including Gastly and Grimer, were looking at him, puzzled. Oh yeah, he was supposed to be training them and not staring off into the void.

Ash started off with trying to improve his two newcomer's speed by asking them to dodge Pikachu's Thunderbolts. This failed as a single shot was enough to take either of them out and they weren't really all that fast, and Ash had to heal them again and again.

So after that, he realized that the only ones strong enough to actually battle with them yet weak enough so they wouldn't get wiped out were each other, and so he had the two of them lob attacks at each other and try to dodge them.

All in all, after about an hour, he felt like he had made very minimal progress. Training was alright, but he knew that the real path to becoming stronger was to battle other Trainers.

He returned to camp and saw that the others had set up dinner and he grabbed a plate. The food they had picked up was the kind that could be stored for long- so it didn't exactly taste very nice to Ash but he noticed the others were eating it with gusto. He also noticed just how very thin most of them were and didn't complain about it.

They swapped stories late into the night after that. Ash was the center of attention, of course, and as the others grew more acclimatized to his presence (they seemed pretty hesitant about asking him anything, or at least, everyone besides Gulliver seemed to be) they asked whatever they wanted about his life back outside Galea.

Most of them seemed to be unable to believe most of the things he was saying- though clearly they never actually said this out loud given that Ash was sure that most of them were worried that he might smite them for saying something inappropriate. It was something he had noticed with a lot of the people he had interacted with since he had landed in Galea.

He didn't get to ask much of what they did in return as he was busy answering their questions and most of their answers were pretty much the same of having to work on the fields or plantations. And anyway, that wasn't what they wanted to know about, so it was hardly talked about. They wanted to hear about the cities of Sinnoh, the mountain ranges of Hoenn, and the lush fields of Kanto where Pokemon roamed freely. Ash hadn't even gotten to tell them about all of his legendary encounters with Pokemon like Ho-Oh or Lugia or how he had seen Kyogre and Groundon fight with each other. He figured if these guys had trouble believing the normal stuff that he had told them- how were they going to believe any of the things that sounded outlandish even to him?

Eventually the questions stopped when Pikachu wanted to get some shut-eye and so began shouting at them and they stopped talking after that.

The next few days as they advanced to the capital took on a routine, monotonous tone as wherever they walked people ran as if they carried the plague and left whatever they had behind. But that wasn't just it, the pollution, if anything, seemed to be getting worse. There were far more Grimer that they saw as they continue to make their way towards their journey, and the numbers seemed to increase day by day.

They also saw a large number of Pokemon who were clearly being affected by the pollution. Magikarp- a Pokemon that Ash was told was resilient to even the most polluted waters according to his Pokedex- were found lying near the banks of rivers. The water was so bad that apparently dry land was better than the water even for them.

Ash could try healing them, but he noticed that whenever he tried cleaning up an are with his Badge, it would stay clean for just a while before, in a few hours it would muddy up again. And every single time that he used his Badge, he got an odd feeling- the same one that he had felt when he had first stepped foot in Thomdolt's neck of the woods- the eerie feeling that he didn't belong here and an urge to turn back and go to Deluge City as fast as he could.

There did seem to be more Pokemon around and active who didn't mind the pollution however, as Gulliver unluckily found out when he accidentally walked into a nest of Skorupi and was stung a whole twelve times before Ash and Pikachu got him out, healed him, and Ash identified the strongest one of the herd of Skorupi and captured it.

That mean that he had three Poison types with him now, and part of him thought that was a bit overkill, but then again, he had no idea what was in store for him as the capital began to materialize on the horizon.

 **A/N: In the anime, I remember that when Ash sent his Muk to Professor Oak the Professor complained about it smelling though it was just a Poke Ball. I have no idea how that works given a Pokemon is completely converted into energy apparently inside the Poke Ball but you know, I tried to write it in anyway.**


	16. VS Thomdolt VII

Thomdolt was not pleased. Their strategy of trying to starve Ash out was not working as well as he had hoped. Though the population of Galea always suffered casualties throughout the ages, it always seemed to manage to surge up again, so that almost always the land was struggling to provide for all the people it harbored.

As it was, though Marley had not stocked his realm well enough, but as the people there did farm, the supplies would last long, though Thomdolt had a feeling that they would get sick of eating carrots. Add to that their quantity of Miltank, and the catch from the rivers, and they would not begin to feel the shortages until winter came around.

And winter was not coming. Not yet and not soon enough. His agents had told Thomdolt that Ash had not bothered with Cinnamon City and was instead coming straight for him.

It was just as well. While Thomdolt had tried to remain confident, in truth, he was wavering slightly now that the threat was at the gates. He had considered fleeing, but where? He could not enter the other's territory without permission, and he was definitely not going to beg Freyja to take him in. No, he was going to tackle this pretender and put all ideas of his cowardice to rest.

Once his scouts reported that they were close enough, Thomdolt moved out to meet him. He had no Gym Trainers as he mistrusted anyone training Pokemon even more than the other Gym Leaders since he didn't train himself that often. He had taken most of the usable Pokemon in the area once he had come to power. It took him twenty minutes to find the stragglers walking slowly yet steadily towards him. They were not many, and they were not walking in any set formation, but rather as if they were leisurely out for a stroll.

Thomdolt snarled. Such arrogance! He was going to meet them, and allow this pretender to issue forth the challenge. And the fight would take place right then and there, where he would have no time for rest.

They seemed to be surprised to see Thomdolt though, as everyone else they had run into had run away the moment they had seen them. Thomdolt saw Ash, a boy in some ridiculous clothing with a Pikachu on his shoulder.

"Halt there!" Thomdolt snarled. "I am here to face you."

"I'm Ash Ketchum, and I challenge you to a Gym Battle," Ash said.

"Then so be it," Thomdolt said. "We will battle, right here and now. Our Badges are enough to ensure that the rules will be obeyed. And, I believe I am obliged to tell you, child, that there is a _special rule_ when you fight me. Before the battle, the Hemlock Badge will badly poison all of your Pokemon. As for those who can't be affected by poison, they will be randomly given other status conditions, such as paralysis, or burns, or sleep."

"What?" Ash said. "That's not fair!"

"It never is," Thomdolt said and grinned. "Why do you think I was so confident I could beat you? Now child, there is no backing out either for you or for me, so without further ado let us begin."

Thomdolt had intended for the battle to begin immediately. He knew that Ash was probably tired from walking for several days, while he had been well-rested. A clear patch of ground was quickly found and the battle commenced.

"I'll start off with Pikachu," Ash said. As his electric rat entered the battleground, the Hemlock Badge shone and Marley knew that it had been badly poisoned. It was now a simple matter of waiting for it to defeat him.

"I'll send off my Roserade," Thomdolt said. He still remembered the exorbitant price he had had to pay for the Shiny Stone to evolve it all those years ago from Marley.

"Pikachu! Thunderbolt!" Ash shouted.

"Roserade, Protect!" Thomdolt replied. Roserade was shielded from the lightning blast by a barrier which then dissipated, doing her no harm. "Now, Roserade, Leech Seed!"

Roserade then shot several small seeds at Pikachu. Pikachu was able to dodge some of them, but still most of the attack hit true. "Good, now Roserade, move out of striking distance."

Roserade was very nimble, and for all of Ash's Thunderbolts and Quick Attacks, very few hit, and then there was the fact that Thomdolt alternated her fast movements with a Protect thrown in-between, and compounded to that the fact that Electric attacks were just not very effective on Grass types, well, in the end Ash had hardly done a dent.

Pikachu though, had quickly become very spent, and it was then that Ash realized the obvious and almost smacked himself in the face. Thomdolt was delaying him! He immediately withdrew Pikachu into its Pokeball for the first time in a while so the poison at least wouldn't get to it and instead sent out his Skorupi, a Pokemon he was sure, at the very least, wouldn't get poisoned.

Skorupi wasn't poisoned, but the moment it entered the battlefield, it nodded off to sleep.

"Excellent," Thomdolt said with a grin and withdrew his Roserade to replace it with a Skarmory. "Skarmory, use Spikes!"

Small spikes covered the battlefield, capable of dealing small amounts of damage to any Pokemon that Ash would switch out with, another excellent part to his delay and poison strategy. Thomdolt then took out the Skorupi with two Aerial Aces.

"You don't seem so confident now," Thomdolt said.

Ash was disappointed, but one thing gave him confidence, that despite all the years that Thomdolt must have had for raising and training his Pokemon, they were still weak enough that a Skarmory needed two hits against his Skorupi, which he had been training only for a few weeks.

"Next, I'll send out Fearow," Ash said. He knew it was a type disadvantage, but he thought it wouldn't matter, not with Fearow being one of his strongest Pokemon.

Fearow was poisoned the moment it was released, but it was saved from the barbed spikes owing to it being a Flying type.

Despite himself, Thomdolt had to admire it. It was a beautiful specimen, with the tendons and muscles finely developed.

"Fearow! Use Return!" Ash said. Fearow struck the Skarmory with such force that it would have fainted if not for its Sturdy ability. Thomdolt's grin was wiped off his face.

"Skarmory! Use Protect!" Thomdolt shouted in vain. Though that blocked the next attack, his attempt to use it again failed and Skarmory was defeated.

"Graveller!" Thomdolt shouted as he sent the huge Rock-type Pokemon out. "Use Rock Slide!"

Stones began to move towards Ash's Fearow, and though initially Fearow seemed shocked, it was able to nimbly dodge most of them and then quickly flew out of range of any more attacks.

Thomdolt wasn't worried though. Time was on his side, and Ash could not delay for long without the poison doing Thomdolt's job for him.

Perhaps sensing this, Ash decided once again to ignore type disadvantages and struck out at the Graveller with another Return. Though this did damage Graveller heavily, it could still take yet another hit. As Ash's Fearow went in for the finishing blow, Thomdolt waited for the right moment, and then said,

"Graveller, Selfdestruct!"

The explosion weakened Ash's Fearow so much that it could not fly any longer, and then the poison did its work. The Graveller had fainted, but so had Fearow.

"You just sacrificed your own Pokemon!" Ash protested.

"It was going to faint anyway," Marley said with a shrug. "And that is how battle is truly done in my opinion. Not through lightning-fast strikes, but preferably through long, drawn-out sieges." He sent out a Chansey, and Ash sent out his Grimer this time.

His Grimer was hurt by the spikes, and was also Paralyzed, but it was able to do quite a lot of damage to the enemy Chansey. Thomdolt tried to counter this by having it use Recover over and over, but this only delayed its defeat and the Chansey fainted.

And so, the battle raged on.

 **A/N: And so we've returned. Next chapter should have us wrapping up with this Gym Battle, and we'll be on to Freyja soon. Thanks for reading, and please don't forget to review!**


	17. VS Thomdolt VIII

Ash was quite unsure of how the battle was progressing. On the one hand, he had lost two Pokemon and Thomdolt had lost three, but he only had five Pokemon, and was almost sure, somewhere in the back of his head, that Thomdolt would have six, if only to stall for more time.

Thomdolt next sent out a Wobbuffet. Ash had a feeling that it was also meant to simply stall him until the poison did its work, but it wasn't very strong and fell to Grimer almost immediately. The Paralysis condition didn't seem to be much of a problem for the time being.

"Gah!" Thomdolt then snarled, all traces of a smile gone from his face. Even if he had six Pokemon, he was down to the last two now. He then sent out a Pokemon that Ash didn't seem to clearly recognize…. though it did seem vaguely familiar somehow.

"Shedninja, use Shadow Ball!" Thomdolt shouted and a blast of dark energy hit Grimer, though for all it did, Grimer seemed to look as if somehow had just splashed his face with some water.

"You should've trained your Pokemon better!" Ash snapped.

Thomdolt smiled. "And you should have done your research better. You clearly can't see that you've almost lost, can you?"

Ash wasn't sure what that was about, so he reacted by doing the most natural thing he knew: he made Grimer repeatedly pelt the enemy Shedninja with Sludge when it wasn't Paralyzed and unable to move. Thomdolt countered by using Shadow Ball over and over. Neither of the attacks seemed to be doing anything to either Pokemon.

It was only after a few minutes that one of the Pokemon seemed to give in, and to Ash's utter surprise it was his Grimer. Finally, his Grimer fainted and collapsed in the dirt, unable to move.

The Shedninja still hovered in the air, and it seemed to be shockingly unharmed; fluttering up and about as if didn't have a care in the world.

That meant that Ash was down to his last two Pokemon: Pikachu and Gastly. Gastly had only been recently captured and was more of a child than a hardened Pokemon ready to battle, but Pikachu had been badly poisoned. And then there were those spikes scattered around the field….

Ash took another look at the Shedninja. Something wasn't right… there was something about that Pokemon that put Ash off. Why weren't his attacks doing any damage to it?

He then whipped out his trusty Pokedex as always, knowing that if anything, it would have the answer to his problems. He opened it, but instead of the usual voice telling him all about the enemy Pokemon, he felt his Badge suddenly vibrate in his pocket and all that came on the screen was static.

Frowning, he tried pressing some buttons, but the Badge just vibrated harder and more static showed up. Finally, the light on the Pokedex went out, and Ash felt his own hand suddenly clench up all by itself, even though he hadn't thought about doing so, and the Pokedex fell from his grasp and onto the ground.

"What are you doing?" Thomdolt asked. "Have you lost your senses? Or are you prepared to surrender? If not, then send out your next Pokemon!"

Ash decided to ignore the Pokedex for now. For some reason, it seemed, the Badge didn't want him to use it in the middle of a battle. He then decided on sending out Pikachu.

"Pikachu! Use Thunderbolt!" Ash shouted even as his partner and friend took damage from the spikes surrounding them. The Thunderbolt, to all appearances, struck true, and yet the Shedninja seemed to be unfazed. "Impossible!" left Ash's lips.

Thomdolt grinned, though he tried to hide the sweat that was rolling down the side of his neck. This child had proven himself to be far more capable than he was expecting, and he was now down to his last two Pokemon. This Shedninja had actually been a gift several years ago from Freyja, a gift in the sense that it was payment for a large amount of debt she had taken out from him years ago and was unable to pay back. Thomdolt had gotten very angry that day. One problem with doing business in Galea, aside from the crazy rules that the Gym Leaders imposed on foreign trade and all, was that it was nigh on impossible to call in on a debt. However, it seemed that the Shedninja had been at the very least, worth it.

Ash had finally had enough. "Pikachu! Use your strongest Thunderbolt! GIVE IT EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!"

The following attack was almost powerful enough to have rivaled Marley's Frenzy Vine. The current was so strong that the hair of several of Ash's supporters stood up on end, and even the sun's light seemed to dim across the field at the luminescence generated by the attack, which remained burnt in everyone's retinas far after it had ceased to exist.

And yet, though the earth itself was scorched, the enemy Shedninja was untouched. And so, Pikachu turned over at Shedninja's next blow, and collapsed.

And with it also went all of Ash's hopes. His best friend had just been defeated. He wanted to rush over and cradle Pikachu in his arms, but the spikes were still scattered across the battlefield and blocked his approach. He returned Pikachu to his Pokeball instead.

And now, there was no choice in the matter. He sent out his Gastly.

Thomdolt, who had a triumphant grin on his face up till now, started panicking inwardly. Wonder Guard was an ability that saved Shedninja from all moves that were not super effective on it, but at the same time Shedninja would faint instantly if it was hit with such an attack. Thomdolt had taken out the Fearow, thereby eliminating the risk of getting hit by a Flying type move, but he had not counted on Ash having another Pokemon that could potentially take out his Shedninja.

Ash noticed the change in Thomdolt's demeanor, and seemed to realize that it meant that Thomdolt was afraid of him or at least, his Gastly. But why? He tried to calm down as he realized that this meant that the fight was not yet over, and there was probably still something that he could do.

Thankfully, luck seemed to be on Ash's side in one thing, in that Gastly was unaffected by the spikes, and also that it was only afflicted by Sleep, something that it quickly snapped out of.

"Gastly! Use Lick!" Ash said, as it was one of the few moves that Gastly knew.

The Shedninja used Protect, retaliating to which Ash used Lick again, and this time, the Protect failed, and the Shedninja fainted instantly. After all of Ash's other attacks had done nothing.

"Wait- what?" Ash asked, looking very confused. "Did those other attacks just weaken it or something?"

Thomdolt couldn't believe two things. One, that he was down to his very last Pokemon, and that two, he was losing to someone so dense they had yet not realized why Shedninja was impervious to all those attacks, or had bothered to read about it somewhere before waltzing in to challenge him.

He then sent out his Roserade again, and what resulted was one of the lamest battles that Ash had ever seen.

Sure, it was nail-biting tension as the two Pokemon went at each other, neither being able to do the other much harm, mainly because the whole battle riding on them.

It took a whole five minutes of this before finally, inevitably, Roserade fainted, followed only a few seconds later by Gastly, meaning that Ash won.

"NOOO!" Thomdolt screamed as the Hemlock Badge moved from his pocket. Before leaving though, it emitted a bright flash of light, and somewhere not far from there, a fire soon broke out, engulfing a large quantity of grain that soon spread, burning all the food reserves there were, though oddly enough, it didn't scorch the buildings themselves or even the people or Pokemon within.

But Ash didn't see that, and as soon as he received the second Gym Badge, the foreboding sense that had been in his head and heart disappeared. He hadn't even realized how much being in foreign territory had changed him, as he suddenly felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Everything around him suddenly felt much familiar, as if he was standing back in his home in Pallet Town, and power seemed to seep through his very veins.

He had won.

 **A/N: And that's that. I'm updating more frequently for a while to sort of make up for all that time. Thanks for reading, Julie Togepi and reviewing.**

 **Please do review if you liked it. Until next time!**


	18. VS Thomdolt IX

**A/N: Julie Togepi, no, Shedninja is a Pokemon that exists. It evolves from Nincada when you get a Ninjask if you have an empty space in your part and an empty Pokeball. It has only one hit point though, and a special ability called Wonder Guard (I'll explain in the fanfic also). It isn't that well-known though, it took me several years before I looked up how to get one.**

"And in short, the food's gone, sir, and we can't seem to do anything about it sir," Mr. Jennings said. He had recovered well enough to function, though he was barred from doing any strenuous activities and had to rest fourteen hours a day. He had been summoned to Cinnamon City, where Ash had set up his headquarters.

The week following Thomdolt's defeat had been busy. First of all, Ash was left to deal with the pollution everywhere, and to his dismay he found that even with both of his Badges, the pollution's damage seemed to be almost permanent in some areas. Worse yet, a mysterious fire had broken out and taken out most of their food supplies. This, coupled with the fact that the soil was not fit for farming even if Thomdolt hadn't been pouring in poison in it for decades, meant that the food reserves in Thomdolt's territory had run out fast.

And unfortunately, this meant that they had to be imported from the regions which had been formerly under Marley's control, stretching their food supplies thinner than before. All in all, they were in a _worse_ state regarding their ability to feed their subjects from before.

Ash had hoped that having Thomdolt's domain meant that the other Gym Leaders would have to buy stuff from him, but they all seemed to have stocked up on stuff they would need long ago, and while they would eventually need supplies, it would be long after Ash's people had nothing to munch on.

"Then what should we do about the letter?" Ash asked.

Once Ash had won, the other representatives of the other Gym Leaders who had come to negotiate with Thomdolt regarding prices had immediately fled across the border. All of them, except for one. He was a young man who was decidedly nervous that Ash might incinerate him, since Ash wasn't bound by the treaty that forbade the Gym Leaders from attacking each other's messengers without provocation, but he seemed quite relieved when Ash let him go across the border after he handed Ash a letter.

 _To Sir Ash,_

 _I ordered my servant to give this to you in case you defeated Thomdolt. Now that you have been victorious, I know that you must now have designs on my territory as well. I say that we therefore, accept the inevitable that the two of us will have to fight it out. As such, I have decided to invite you to my villa for dinner, and after that, we can have our battle. My villa is located not far from the border; it is only about half an hour away. We can meet on May 6_ _th_ _, two weeks from now. You can bring a few of your officers if you want, but I do request that you not bring too many- while my food stores are abundant, they cannot feed a small army._

 _Signed,_

 _Freyja, The Third Gym Leader_

Beneath this there was a small prismatic seal that looked like a small doughnut.

"Is it even real?" Ash asked.

"The seal is that of a Gym Badge," Mr. Jennings answered. "And the Badge's shape does match that of what I've heard Freyja's Badge is supposed to look like."

Ash rubbed the seal with his finger, and he felt a strange vibrating sense, and it caused his own Gym Badges to twitch.

"Okay, so if it's real, it is a trap, right?" Ash asked. "Why has she gone and invited me instead of staying away like Marley and Thomdolt did? Or is she really, really, strong?"

"As far as I remember," Mr. Jennings said, "she only won her Gym Badge because of her Shedninja."

"I faced one," Ash said. "What's so special about it?"

"It possesses an ability called Wonder Guard, sir," Mr. Jennings said. "Basically, Shedninja is a very fragile Pokemon; a single hit is enough to topple it. But, Wonder Guard protects it from all attacks that are not super effective against it. As it is a Bug and Ghost type, only attacks that are Rock, Flying, Fire, Dark, etc. are going to defeat it. If you don't have one of those attacks, then you are doomed against a Shedninja."

Everything made sense to Ash. "Then why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I apologize, sir, for my error, but I did not know that Thomdolt would have one," Mr. Jennings said. "Shedninja are quite rare, and I did not know that Lady Freyja had gifted one to him. And there were other things to try and teach you, and an esoteric Pokemon that you'd probably never meet was not at the forefront of my mind."

"When I tried using my Pokedex during the battle, it didn't work," Ash said. "Why?"

"Oh," Mr. Jennings said, "I'm sorry for not mentioning this earlier sir, but using your Pokedex in a Gym Battle would no doubt count as cheating."

"I've used it in battles before," Ash said.

"Perhaps, but the rules are different here," Mr. Jennings said. "So you cannot rely on your Pokedex while fighting the Gym Leaders."

"Okay, so what do we do about the invite?" Ash asked. "It has to be some sort of trap, but it seems like the easiest way to get in her domain."

"Hmm, true," Mr. Jennings said. "The thing is, from all the rumors I've heard, Lady Freyja has been characterized as a sort of, well, dunce as well as quite eccentric. Though it cannot hurt to be careful."

"I'll need Pokemon for combating Shedninja then," Ash said. "I have Fearow and Gastly already."

"You can borrow my Arcanine then," Mr. Jennings said. When he saw that Ash was about to protest, he added, "I can't really battle now, and you don't have a Fire type. Plus, it will be good against a Shedninja."

With that matter for the while decided, they next moved on to trying to supply enough food for everyone. Ash decided to use his Badges to their full extent, went outside the city, and tried to grow crops using them.

It worked. Sort of. Growing things that normally took several months to grow was hard, and several hours later, he had enough to feed Cinnamon City for three days.

In other words, doing that was out of the question for a long time.

Mr. Jennings was privately actually thankful that so many Pokemon had died due to the pollution, which meant fewer mouths to feed, but he also felt disgusted with himself for thinking so, and also remembered that this meant that the bodies were so poisoned as to not be edible.

So, they improvised. They started chopping down trees in Marley's old domain to make room for some more farmland, though they had to be careful not to do so much as to hurt the Pokemon. They brought in Combee hives around Cinnamon City and began harvesting them for honey.

They also tried contacting Wade, the Fifth Gym Leader, hoping that if he was really the one who had sent Ash there, he might also know a way for Ash to go back, or maybe just trade some goods for some seafood. But, no replies came to any of their messages.

There was no point being roundabout it. The only thing left to be done was to continue their conquest.

They did find something rather interesting in the place where the envoys from Selena had been staying. They had been in quite a hurry to leave, and had forgotten some papers.

"Why did they all run away?" Ash asked.

"Propaganda, you know, they think that you're like some sort of cruel barbarian," Mr. Jennings said. "Hmmm, these papers are regarding a business transactions made for siege machines."

"Who is she planning on attacking?" Ash asked. "I mean, the obvious answer is us, but she can't, right?"

"That's the mystery," Mr. Jennings said. "It's odd, she also has ordered several parts for ships designed for naval warfare. Could she be going up against Wade? No- that too would be against the treaty. I don't trust that woman and her schemes though, no doubt somewhere she's still plotting against us."

* * *

With Thomdolt gone, Selena and Linnea were discussing terms regarding what they should do next on the phone.

"Freyja's the only thing standing in between the pretender and my realm," Linnea muttered.

"Yes, but now that child has to feed double the people with almost the same amount of food," Selena said. "And he will soon realize that regardless of how terrible Marley or Thomdolt were, they could always keep the peasants fed. Once hunger starts to strike everywhere, it will weaken his rule as riots break out."

"You're forgetting that if he takes my territory from me," Linnea said, "then he will reverse this entire scenario on its head and it will be your people who will starve."

"My reserves will last for several years, thank you very much," Selena said. "And I think Vanessa will be able to help me tide over a bit should that come to pass."

"So what is Freyja planning?" Linnea asked. "Has she sealed off her domain?"

"I have bad news on that front," Selena said. "She has instead invited the pretender to come to her domain and actually fight him." She held up a copy of the letter that Ash had received. "Fool. She thought a written letter would mean that I wouldn't be able to get my hands on the message."

Linnea's jaw actually dropped. When she found her voice she said, "Is that total idiot really serious? She's going to challenge him head-on? Does she somehow have Thomdolt's venom?"

"Well, he didn't give it to me, so I don't think he'd give it to her either," Selena said. "And she can't be dense enough to think that poisoning him would even work, he must have all of his meals tasted by now."

"Has she thought of some amazing battle strategy then? Have you lent her some Pokemon?" Linnea asked.

"No, and I can't contact her either," Selena muttered. "She won't pick up my calls."

"Then what's she thinking! That, that," Linnea stuttered, thinking of a correct word to describe her feelings for Freyja. "I need to make preparations to receive the pretender immediately."

"I still don't understand how she became Gym Leader in the first place," Selena said. "She hasn't the common sense to be a fisherman's wife, let alone one of us!"

"There's nothing left to do then but make preparations," Linnea said. "And what of His Majesty? An entire two domains have been lost, surely he must act now?"

Selena shook his head. "He is as unresponsive as ever. It's like trying to talk to a wall."

"And what of Wade?" Linnea suddenly asked. "He almost controls the entire ocean! That amount of fish could feed-"

"Wade is not doing anything," Selena said. "He hasn't replied to the pretender and is almost as unreachable as His Majesty. And I am beginning to doubt his guilt to some extent... he has not ceased stating that he had nothing to do with this Ash."

"Then who did it?' Linnea asked. "It must have been a Gym Leader, no?"

"True, but who is left?" Selena asked. "I might have doubted Freyja seeing that she seems to be currently almost handing over her Badge on a silver platter to him, but such a schemes is much beyond her. The only other likely candidate I can think of... is His Majesty, though I don't know why he would ever do something like that."

"His Majesty?" Linnea asked. 'I know you don't like him, but he seems more of the type to do nothing rather than something like this."

"Hmm..." Selena said. "We can only wonder."

 **A/N: I've noticed how in the anime, Ash usually takes out his Pokedex during battle... sometimes even during official Gym Battles and Pokemon League battles. It always struck me as strange that Ash could look up what his opponent's Pokemon were in the middle of a fight, I mean that's kind of like flipping through your textbook during the middle of an exam.**


	19. VS Freyja I

**A/N: Julie Togepi, thanks but I can't update everyday anymore and it is back to once a week for now. At this point, as we delve more into the geography of Galea, I'm once again at a loss since it is rather hard to describe a new region but I'll try my best. Also, release dates for Sun and Moon have been announced, and though this fanfic won't be over by then, I probably won't be adding new Pokemon from them.**

Lady Freyja's domain consisted of a large collection of mountain ranges interrupted by vast stretches of Steppe in between. It nearly formed a complete semicircle around Ash's total territory, isolating it from the realms of the Fourth and Sixth Gym Leaders that lay beyond.

There were numerous small scattered towns and villages in the region, with Alamut and Kingshead being the only large settlements. Routes 206 and 207 were worn out and connected it with the realms of the Fourth and Sixth Gym Leaders respectively.

Very few people inhabited the mountains, but they had each been supplied at the peak with an observatory, though most of them were uninhabited until Freyja assigned a team to check them for some reason of the other.

It was to one such observatory that the outlaw slowly walked, making sure that her Pokemon were still with her.

It had been over thirty years since she had challenged Freyja to a Gym Battle. Thirty years when, just as she was about to lose, she had fled, and took solace in the mountains. She was well aware that if Freyja had wanted, she could have easily found her and taken her.

Luckily though, the mistress of the realm seemed to be interested in very little things outside herself and acquiring more wealth, and it seemed that she thought the outlaw to be nothing worth spending so much trouble for her.

The observatories had their roots in ancient history, they had been necessary during times when the threat of invading armies was tangible, for whoever had the Replay Badge would have to fend off attacks from the domains of the Fourth, Second, and Sixth Gym Leaders at any given moment and so were mainly meant for scouting, though in recent years they had fell out of use thanks to the Accord.

It was for the stored food that the outlaw had decided to risk entering one. As she combed through the inventory, a sound rang out through the empty place.

A phone was ringing.

She frowned, that was odd, the place was empty, after all. And the phone rang again. And again.

In the end, some sort of odd curiosity drew her to the ringing, and after a moment's hesitation, she picked up the phone.

A voice spoke out of the earpiece, one that she had not heard in a long, long, time, though she still remembered as if she had heard it only yesterday.

"Emily… sister, is that you?" the outlaw asked excitedly, but was soon disappointed. The voice crackled and seemed mechanical; it was a mere recording. It was then joined by the voice of three others, the voices of the rest of the Elite Four, those which she remembered less well.

The message wasn't meant for someone in Freyja's employment No, it was a message directed specifically for her.

Once it ended, she frantically made preparations to leave. She would have to intervene quickly.

Whoever this Sir Ash was, he had no idea what he was getting into.

* * *

Ash had had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about strategy.

"I think based on our options that you should go ahead and take her invitation," Mr. Jennings said. "Though I should also point out that if she wanted to surrender, she would just do so rather than go through all of this in a roundabout way. So she must be planning something. And do note that her Badge has the most peculiar ability."

"What?" Ash had asked. Pikachu looked up from the apple it was nibbling and began listening intently. He figured someone smart had to listen to stuff around the place.

"Do they have Technical Machines and Hidden Machines, or TMs, and HMs where you're from, sir?" Mr. Jennings asked.

"I think I've heard of them somewhere, yeah," Ash said.

"Well, as a refresher, they are objects that allow you to teach a move to a Pokemon instantly," Mr. Jennings said. "They are specially made within Lady Freyja's domain, and are the source of most of her income. Her Badge can let you teach a move to a Pokemon, similar to a TM, but you can teach a Pokemon any move, even one that it could not normally learn."

"So you could get an Oddish that knows Flamethrower? Or a Pikachu that can use Surf?" Ash asked, amazed.

"Yes, but power is never without price, as we say in Galea," Mr. Jennings said. "It is a bit like the Irresolute Badge. While it can evolve Pokemon, evolving them prematurely result in them becoming weak. In the same vein, the Replay Badge can teach moves instantly, and if you teach a Pokemon a move that it could normally learn, well, that's no problem, but if you teach it something that it couldn't, the Pokemon will know only that move, and forget all others."

"It sounds sort of cool," Ash said. "Though not really that useful in battle. I mean, if you wanted to open a circus with Pokemon that knew strange moves maybe that'd be helpful."

"Yes, but she doesn't run a circus," Mr. Jennings said.

"I've been asking around about her and it seems that she's really stupid or just plain insane based on the rumors I've heard. And that her Pokemon aren't that strong," Ash said.

"Indeed," Mr. Jennings said. "Her Pokemon are allegedly the weakest of the Gym Leaders, even weaker than Marley's. Which only makes this all the more dangerous as it means that Lady Freyja, who reigned for five years before Galea was ripped from time and space, managed to hold her throne somehow using weak Pokemon and whatever strategy she has concocted. She has clearly found some way to defeat stronger Trainers for that long, and not simply thanks to her Shedninja. She must know that Thomdolt probably used one against you and that you'd be prepared."

"None of the Gym Leaders I've faced seem to have been very good at battling," Ash said. "Except for Marley's Serperior."

"True," Mr. Jennings said. "The only real battlers among the Gym Leaders are Linnea, Wade, and Selena that I know of."

"What's her Badge's special rule?" Ash asked.

"Thankfully we do happen to know that," Mr. Jennings said. "She has to accept all challenges, of course, but she can choose whether the battle will be a Double Battle, Single Battle, Triple Battle, or Rotation Battle. She can even challenge you to all of them and demand that you beat her in every single one if you want to take her Badge, and say that a loss in a any one of them is a loss of the whole thing, though she will have to heal your Pokemon after every one."

"But if she isn't strong, what would that do?" Ash said. "It would make no difference."

"Yes, that is true," Mr. Jennings said. "Regardless, I would suggest that you the moment that you spot her, challenge her to a Gym Battle. That way her actions against you will be limited. And keep your eyes open, Sir Ash, because Lady Freyja isn't playing with a full deck. Do not eat anything without having it tasted first, as a matter of fact, though I believe it would be rude, you might want to refuse all food and drink offered to you."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks," Ash said and ran off to train. He made care to pay attention to Gastly, for he was the one who had won him the last battle against the Shedninja, and by the time the date for the dinner had come, Ash had a Haunter instead of a Gastly.

It was decided that Ash would go, accompanied by Gulliver and his friends who had been with him in his last journey. Mr. Jennings would be staying behind due to his health.

Before Gulliver left though, he had decided to ask Mr. Jennings for a few things he thought that they'd need.

Mr. Jennings was in his office, inundated in an unending fountain of reports and phone calls, which, despite the many people assigned to keep the room tidy, still looked like Thundurus and Tornadus had an all-out brawl inside of there.

Mr. Jennings ignored everything for a minute and said, "Ah yes, Sir Gulliver, just the person I wanted to have a chat with?"

"Really?" Gulliver asked.

"Yes, it is about you and your comrades recent, ah, escapades," Mr. Jennings said. Though Mr. Jennings believed that Gulliver and his friends would not take advantage of their newfound authority, he had the feeling that they were more likely to get into trouble now that they knew they probably weren't going to get punished for it. Several of these incidents included Gulliver deciding to take a helicopter out for a ride and crashing it, someone accidentally flooding part of Cinnamon City, a large amount of sweets suddenly going missing, and thirty-seven other incidents.

Gulliver blushed. "Look, we're sorry 'bout that and all."

"That is not all, young man, that I would like to talk about," Mr. Jennings said. "What I do want to say is that if you want to start helping Lord Ash more, rather than going around wandering like this, you should have spent time trying to figure out how to run things."

"But we do help him!" Gulliver protested.

"And do pray tell me what you did for him in the campaign against Thomdolt," Mr. Jennings said. "Something besides standing around and tasting his food for him, Gulliver. The point is that although Sir Ash is a fierce trainer, he has no experience running a domain. I cannot continue doing it for him as his territory expands, and being shot with poison has made me realize that my life might not last as long as I hope it does. If that comes to past, we need someone who will handle the governing of these territories. The burden will of course, eventually come up on Lord Ash in the end, but until then, and while the Gym Leaders are still in power, he will need help."

"I have been training my Pokemon too though," Gulliver muttered weakly.

"And how strong are they?" Mr. Jennings asked. "I know this may be a bit harsh, but the truth is that although you might- and most people would- dream of being powerful trainers, there is not enough time for you to reach a level that will be useful in the near future. And while sitting at a desk might not be anyone's idea of a glamorous or heroic life, it is necessary, and where you will most probably find yourself in."

"Alrighty then," Gulliver said with a long sigh. He decided that now would be the best time to start and picked up a piece of paper detailing things about the Gym Leaders and their general powers. "Golly… it must be great being one. Full power and all…."

There was more than a hint of longing in his voice.

"If you must know," Mr. Jennings said. "I don't envy the Gym Leaders. I pity them. In truth, and I've seen this myself and it is the conclusion I've drawn from whatever I've read. The Gym Leaders are in truth, prisoners who have forged their cells with their own hands. To be a Gym Leader is to have a Honedge hanging by a thread over your head constantly. Their powers make them paranoid and they no longer trust anyone, not even those who were earlier their family members. They wield absolute power, but refuse to leave their own territories and remain holed up in there and do not dare to leave them. Power turns the gentlest of souls into cruel tyrants. As a matter of fact, they cannot even die, as the Badges will not let them, and they are forced to endure till the end of time itself if need be or until they are eventually defeated. So very few of them lived happily." He glanced at his watch. "I do not have time though, for such philosophical musings. Lord Ash has to leave this afternoon and there are preparations to be made."

 **A/N: And that ends our chapter. I'd just like to say here that I've revealed enough information to show what Lady Freyja is planning. Basically, using whatever info I've mentioned, it is possible to create a near unbeatable strategy regardless of how weak your Pokemon are. I'd welcome all of you to try and guess what it is either through the reviews or through PM if you'd prefer.**

 **Thank you for reading, and as always, please do review if you liked it.**


	20. VS Freyja II

**A/N: Thanks Great and Julie Togepi for those reviews. No, the plan won't involve poison, but I'll give another hint next chapter.**

 **That said, we've managed to hit 20 chapters! Thanks so much guys!**

Across the border that lead into Freyja's domain, Ash could see a group of people who had gathered and had shouted over to him, following which they had started telling him that they were there to escort him to Lady Freyja's villa.

Gulliver, with his crew that had recently expanded kudos to volunteers from Thomdolt's domain, would be going along with Ash. Their scouts could not see any traps or unusual activity up ahead, and so, Ash decided that if they were going to go, they might as well go quickly.

There was a sort of demarcation between the two territories, the grass turned a darker shade of green on Lady Freyja's side, though it was subtle enough that Ash probably wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for the uncomfortable feeling that came over him as he crossed over.

It wasn't as bad at last time though in the tunnel leading to the Gliscor's Nest, which made Ash wonder why. Was it because he had two, not one Badges now? Or was it because he had been invited and wasn't trespassing this time? He needed to start asking these kinds of questions, especially as he had nearly lost his last Gym Battle due to not knowing enough.

Regardless, he still suddenly felt clammy and he felt a small pain in his head accompanied by yet more desire to go back. Thoughts began flooding his head mainly centering around whether or not this was a good idea, and a nagging feeling came directing him back from where he had come. Still though, he continued onwards. He gave a glance towards Pikachu, and either he was as uncomfortable as Ash was, or his instinct had told him something was wrong.

The lead person in their rather uncomfortable-looking welcoming committee stepped forward ten paces from the others and said, "I am Duke Hamnet. Which one of you is Lord Ash?"

Ash merely stepped forward. "I am."

Duke Hamnet's eyes widened with disbelief until he noticed the two Badges pinned to Ash's chest, but he recovered rather quickly (or at least more quickly than the others, who instantly began murmuring to each other) and put out his hand. "Well met then. I am Lady Freyja's right hand man. She wanted me to personally escort you to her villa. It is not very far from here. Shall we be off?"

Duke Hament was dressed in the manner of a Victorian dandy, and was also sweating profusely. Ash noticed that everyone there was dressed up in what looked like a costume, there was someone dressed as a samurai, and another as a Nordic Knight. The ladies were dressed even more extravagantly, in large dresses or kimonos with accessories and headdresses that would clearly make it nigh-on impossible to do any of life's normal tasks.

"I think so," Ash said and extended his hand as a courtesy.

Duke Hament took a long look at the extended hand, as if it belonged to a Garbador and not a human, and finally, reluctantly shook it. Ash noticed his hand was extremely sweaty and shaking.

And so, they went on, trying to make good time.

This was unfortunate as they were going ridiculously slow. The costumes that Lady Freyja's delegation were wearing were not very conducive to certain activities like walking (and for an unfortunate number of ladies wearing corsets, breathing as well) and so they were slugging along slower than a Shuckle.

This gave Ash a lot of time to ponder about questions along the lines of: Why did Lady Freyja need more than two dozen people to fetch him? Why are they all dressed like that? And why didn't they bring a truck or something?

Ash couldn't help but notice that his reception committee was none too happy seeing him. They kept stealing nervous glances at him but always hastily looked away whenever he looked at them.

He guessed that they were probably scared of him. Once he had taken over Thomdolt's domain, he had began to learn just what rumors had circulated about him. He had, overall, been characterized as some sort of barbarian, and all sorts of crimes were attributed to them, including but not limited to theft, razing cities, cannibalism, and stealing candies from babies.

Ash had even seen a crude drawing of what was supposed to be him with him carrying a bunch of human heads. He shuddered. Mr. Jennings hadn't seem very bothered with it, but it disturbed him deeply that that was how most people thought of him. There was very little he could do about it though.

Gulliver and his gang mainly walked along and didn't attempt to strike up any conversation with Lady Freyja's delegates, asides from throwing some suspicious glances at them and whispering amongst themselves. The two parties also tried to maintain as much distance from each other as possible, with the result being that Lady Freyja's delegates were on one side, Gulliver's team on the other, and Ash sandwiched between them. This made the delegates move away from Ash slowly, which made Gulliver's team move towards them in case they were plotting something, and so Ash also moved towards them.

In short, the trip was near to complete torture for nearly all who were involved, especially because although it wasn't very hot, Duke Hamnet and the rest were dressed in full sleeves and carrying an unbelievable amount of paraphernalia and jewelry, with the end result that they were all sweating like a Caterpie in a nest of Pidgeotto.

The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself somewhat was Pikachu, who seemed to have gotten over his initial apprehension about the place and was now running along playing in the grass like this was any other day.

Finally, the villa came into view. Ash had to admit that it made for a rather grand scene, with the sun setting over a small lake near the villa and the outlines of the mountains providing a quant backdrop against the fields humming with Volbeat and Illumise.

Ash didn't think he had ever seen so many people so relieved to be at their destination. Duke Hamnet, who had been sweating so much that it looked like he had just come back from swimming said, "Let me just fetch Milady, Sir Ash, and then we can commence with the dinner. Merely excuse me for a minute."

Duke Hament dashed off towards the villa. This left the two parties staring awkwardly at each other as they waited for his return.

* * *

Duke Hamnet had nearly collapsed by the time he reached the front of the villa. It was truly magnificent, based on ancient architecture and made using some loans that Lady Freyja had taken out from Thomdolt some time ago. Despite that though, it was, of course, equipped with all the modern facilities one could wish for.

He buzzed the intercom. "This is Duke Hamnet, I must speak to our mistress."

"Hamnet, you don't look so well. What happened?" a familiar voice answered him. There was of course, a camera in the intercom outside, just no screen so he could see who he was talking to.

"Milady, I've just had to walk over half a mile in these clothes," Hamnet said. Normally, Hament was dashing and handsome enough, but he currently had huge pit stains like most of the other members of his party and looked about ready to collapse. "If you may excuse me, may I ask why we were all sent in this matter?"

"Is it not obvious?" the answer came as if someone was trying to tell a child something blatantly obvious. "I had to of course, make a good expression of my strength and regality and so I sent all of you in this manner. First impressions are the last impressions, as they say."

It took a large amount of self-control to prevent Duke Hament from running back towards Ash and begging him to let him keep his position when he beat Lady Freyja, because Duke Hament was sure that the fate of the realm under the yoke of such an idiot as his mistress was not something he could count on. This made him regret not shaking the boy's hand immediately and waiting for so long which might have offended him, but that had been in truth, because the gesture had surprised him so much he hadn't been sure what to do about it.

"Milady, the first impression we've given them is a host of people extravagantly dressed for no reason and sweating profusely," Duke Hamnet replied.

"Oh, tush," Lady Freyja said. "Anyway, if he is finally here, do call him in. We've been waiting for him for a long time."

"Yes, that's because you didn't give us any trucks or vehicles to-" Duke Hament stopped when he realized his most esteemed Mistress was no longer even listening.

He sighed. He had served with Lady Freyja long after the incident thirty-two years ago, but it was long enough to know that her Pokemon weren't strong enough to fight a flock of Starly, let alone someone accomplished enough to beat Marley. She had survived mainly by forcing everyone to swear to never challenge her and taking Pokemon away from those who didn't like all the other Gym Leaders. And for some reason, she had insisted upon inviting this pretender for dinner and a battle, and as far as he knew, she was completely serious about the offer.

He might have even hoped that perhaps she had a trick up her sleeve that she wasn't showing him, but his years of experience told him that it was a false hope.

He walked over towards Lord Ash and said, far more respectfully this time, "Milord, Lady Freyja, the Third Gym Leader and mistress of this realm is waiting for you inside."

 **A/N: Thanks for reading everyone.**

 **As always, do review if you liked!**


	21. VS Freyja III

**A/N: Thanks for your reviews. Julie Togepi, that would be funny... but sadly she isn't allowed to do that. Great, well, I will be giving another hint regarding the battle strategy in this chapter, so sit tight JayFan67. Also, yes, Duke Hamnet will be crossing over, just not yet**

The villa looked nearly as magnificent inside as well as outside. The rooms were nearly as magnificent as those of Parfum Palace back in Kalos, and they were led to the gardens adjoining the lake.

The most massive dinner table Ash had ever seen was there, and he had seen some massive dinner tables in his time. A tarp had been set up and air conditioning was set up outside, despite it being out in the open and hence a large waste of electricity in Ash's opinion. This was a huge relief for Duke Hament and his crew, who immediately collapsed in the chairs and began chugging down water with no regards to who was watching.

A woman who was sitting at the head of the table got up, and with the way everyone looked at her, it was almost certain she was Lady Freyja.

One of the things that Ash had noticed (or rather, characteristically, completely failed to notice until he had seen it several times) was that fashion choices for women in Galea were rather old-fashioned compared to other regions, and certainly emphasized covering oneself far more than what he was used to.

That was why Ash was sure that Mr. Jennings, and probably Selena and Linnea as well would have called Lady Freyja's dress 'hideously decadent and indecent' despite the fact that her skirt did at least cover her knees (Ash could only imagine how Mr. Jennings would react if he could see Dawn). She had light brown hair that curled downwards all the way towards her waist and her dress was a dark red color covered with frills and ribbons, and her eyes were the color of cotton candy, and though they were beautiful, they seemed oddly vacant. She was wearing short sleeves and there didn't seem to be another place where one could put even one more ribbon into her hair.

All in all, something about her attire instantly came across as extremely fake to Ash- like he was looking at some doll for display in a shop instead of a real person, and as she got up to greet him she almost tripped (How did someone stumble like that? The ground was flat and she wasn't wearing high heels!), came over and vigorously shook his hand. She was hardly a head taller than Ash despite clearly being an adult and smiled far too friendly for his, or his Pikachu's, liking.

"Oh, you're so far younger than I expected!" she exclaimed. "But I had heard the stories of course, but you can never trust rumors, and you can trust anything that Selena says even less, you know. Now do come sit, I've reserved the place of honor right for you, dear."

Ash followed her towards the table, and the rest of his entourage followed and sat opposite Duke Hamnet and his crew. The food was already laid across the table and had clearly been there for a while.

Ash had eaten around a campfire and at times consumed nothing but instant noodles. He had also eaten, at times, the finest foods available in the world, and the things laid on the table somehow knocked all of them out of the water.

There were many things that he didn't have a name for, or had not even seen before which he guessed were dishes native to Galea. Conspicuous was the fact that everything seemed to be present in huge proportions and in huge excess as if trying to assure whoever sat at the table that the host was rich beyond measure.

It was extraordinarily extravagant, something that coincided with everything that Ash had seen so far from the costumes to the villa to the air conditioning outside.

Ash pulled up a chair for Pikachu to sit in. This did not go unnoticed by Freyja

"Oh, it is so nice to see how you care for your Pokemon," she said. "After all, what are we Gym Leaders without them, hmm? And why, if you will forgive the question, is your Pikachu not in a Pokeball?"

"It doesn't like to be in it," Ash said.

"Oh," she replied. "And then look at me. It's been so long since I've last had to take my Pokemon outside of their Pokeballs…. over fifteen years, if I'm not mistaken."

Ash found this impossible to believe, but he didn't think that she was joking. Fifteen years!

"I have a rather large sweet tooth, as you can see," Lady Freyja said. Ash looked at the food laid out carefully and noticed that most of them were cakes with elaborate frosting as well as other things which were almost sparkling with sugar crystals. "Everything besides them tastes rather like metal to me. Thank goodness for the Replay Badge, otherwise I would have certainly become a diabetic by now, and certainly unable to keep this figure of mine." She took a slice of cake in her plate and began eating, which meant that Duke Hamnet and his crew also started.

Ash on the other hand, and his crew didn't. It was then that Ash suddenly remembered what Mr. Jennings had told him.

"I, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, challenge you to a Gym Battle," Ash said.

Lady Freyja, instead of looking offended or scared, merely showed a triumphant smile.

That itself should have run alarm bells in Ash's head, but he was distracted by Pikachu leaping up and taking a bite out of some biscuits. While Ash was mostly sure that Lady Freyja hadn't poisoned the food, and that Pikachu could (probably?) smell to see if it was alright, it was still worrying. Pikachu seemed fine though.

"Ha ha, I haven't poisoned anything, you know," Lady Freyja said. "No, Thomdolt wouldn't give me the formula, no matter how much I whined. I take it that you finished him off with dignity?"

"Do you mean, kill him?" Ash asked. "No, he's been imprisoned for now." Thomdolt had not yielded anything meaningful on interrogation, being bound as he was, like Marley, by his oaths and basically just repeated what Marley had said on his defeat.

That did certainly surprise Lady Freyja.

"Imprisoned?" she asked. "And Marley is as well?"

"Yes," Ash said.

"How… foolishly kind of you," Freyja answered with a derisive snort as she now tackled a piece of key lime pie.

Ash however, was not hungry in the slightest. Instead, his mind whirled around with dozens of questions, questions that he doubted that Freyja would answer truthfully, but still, he figured she might let something slip.

"I take it that you know of my special rule?" Freyja asked him. "We'll be having a double battle."

"Only a double battle?" Ash asked, remembering the rule that Mr. Jennings had said being different.

"Yes, I am rather skilled at double battles, and another will not be necessary," Freyja said, a twinkle in her eye. "But let us finish with dinner first."

Freyja asked a few more questions about where Ash had come from which he answered half-heartedly. Conversation had sprung up among the other members of the party and Freyja's people, but they were confined to whispers amongst a single faction.

"So, you don't know who sent me here?" Ash asked. "Or a way I could get back?"

"Sadly no," Lady Freyja said. "Selena might, but then again sending you back might truly damage the barrier too much. I don't have much experience in these things, so she might be right. Too bad she's too busy being paranoid and searching for things like Gregor's sixth Pokemon to bother doing something real about you."

"What's Gregor's sixth Pokemon?" Ash asked.

"Oh, you don't know?" she asked in a know-it-all fashion, which was rather ironic coming from someone who had, up till now, showed a rather complete dearth of common sense. "You see, long back before all this happened, there were the Four Heavenly Kings, right? So, each of them had five Pokemon, but then they later decided that having a full arsenal would be a good idea, so they each began training a sixth one. Except for Gregor of the Elite Four. He still had only five Pokemon, but some sources said that just before they fell to us, he had confirmed catching a sixth one. But surprise, surprise, Selena and His Majesty, the ones who mostly held them at bay, found that he only had five with him. So where did the sixth one go, if there ever really was one? All of us passed it off as nothing important, but it turned into a sort of obsession for Selena. She's spent years trying to scour the land looking for it. Gregor was the wisest and craftiest of the Elite Four, so he may have predicted our… well, I suppose you would call it betrayal? And then, have made some sort of failsafe in case he fell. " Freyja shrugged. "At least that's what Selena says. She has far too much time on her hands. What could a single Pokemon do anyway, if it did exist?"

Ash's mind though was already racing. A sixth Pokemon somewhere, and one that was probably trained by the Elite Four! If the ones in Galea were as strong as the ones back home, it would be a force to be reckoned with. If only he could find it… then defeating the Gym Leaders would be so much easier!

Ash's thoughts of securing a potential ally were interrupted as Freyja added, "Speaking of Selena, I've heard some… interesting rumors about her."

Ash could tell that Freyja was the type of person who wanted him to ask what they were so she could tell him, so he decided to bite. "Really? Like what?"

Leaning closer dramatically, Freyja said, "I've heard, from some spies I installed in her domain- don't look so shocked, all of us have them- that she would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Screaming about some nightmares that she was having, and that she continues to have. They say that she always feels like someone is watching her and monitoring her. Poor girl." She took a sip of some liquid chocolate. "I'd almost feel sorry for her, if it wasn't for the fact that she was so stuck up."

True, Ash didn't like Selena, despite how she looked.

At the same time though, he harbored no illusions regarding Freyja. Though she seemed to be chatting friendly enough, Ash knew that she wouldn't hesitate to stab him through the heart if she had the chance.

After all, such was what power did to a person.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. As for Freyja's special strategy, I will now lay down the three hints I've given:**

 **1\. She'll use a Shedninja.**

 **2\. Her Badge can let Pokemon learn moves they normally couldn't.**

 **3\. It will be a double battle.**

 **Do review if you liked and keep guessing! All will be revealed as the story progresses, of course.**

 **Also, I need to point out that Wonder Guard blocks only attacks that do damage. It would not block something like Tail Whip.**

 **Also, there's the thing about titles in Galea. Basically, anyone will be called anything, whether it is Sir Ash, Lord Ash, King Ash, Prince Ash, or Duke Ash, basically the titles are pretty wishy-washy here and only the Gym Leaders or the Elite Four are true ranks.**


	22. VS Freyja IV

**A/N: Thanks for your reviews. JayFan27, yeah that does sound ridiculous, but I was just pointing out that the titles don't really mean anything special here.**

 **Julie Togepi, nice guess, only problem is that Freyja's Pokemon are weak... very weak as a matter of fact. Duke Hamnet and Mr. Jennings were not wrong on that count.**

 **Also, it occurs to me that I might not have specifically said this at any point in time, but the Gym Leader's special rules only count if they are being challenged, not if they're the one challenging the opponent. So Ash, in a fight, can't have the Hemlock Badge poison his opponents unless they challenge him to a Gym Battle. And as mentioned before, the Gym Leaders and their servants can't challenge Ash so, well, as you might think it will be an uphill battle.**

"Speaking of the Elite Four," Ash asked. "Do you know what happened to them? Are they still alive or-"

"I have no doubts that Selena would have gladly killed them off," Freyja said. "Though, to be fair, I for one wasn't there to see it. And of course, if they could be killed."

"What do you mean, if they 'could' be?" Ash asked.

"Oh dear, you don't even know that?" Freyja asked in another annoying voice. "You do know how the Elite Four are chosen, no?"

"Mr. Jennings did tell me," Ash said. "One has to get all the Eight Badges and then challenges another one of the Elite Four. Once they're accepted, they give up their Badges."

"Correct. Now, as the Badges are stores of ultimate power, why would someone give them up?" Freyja asked. "Or did that never occur to you? Once they become one of the Elite Four, they no longer need Badges. The energy of the Eight Badges, which is dispersed throughout the land, becomes one with their very beings. They gain various powers, and it emanates through their Pokemon. Their Pokemon permanently retain certain special powers, and they can use them whenever they want, unlike our special rules. I do believe that Arthur had a Dewgong that could move through soil as if it were water, and Emily's Swampert was immune to Grass attacks. They would then wander Galea and other regions as per their whim, though they usually stayed out of the ways of the Gym Leaders, mostly spending time in their residencies north which belongs to the Eighth Gym Leader. Most of them, if you're wondering, were several hundred years old. Then again, I wouldn't want to get your hopes up. If anyone could find a way, it would have been Selena."

"Oh," Ash said.

"You still haven't touched your plate," Freyja muttered. "You're not still under the impression that it is poisoned, are you? Your Pokemon and your people have been wolfing it down for the last fifteen minutes."

Pikachu waved at Ash; Pikachu's face was now completely smeared with frostings of various types. Apparently Freyja wasn't the only one with a sweet tooth.

"Wait, but I still don't get one thing," Ash said, his appetite strangely absent (something he was sure that Brock and the others would be horrified to know). "If that's true, why don't they do anything, I mean, why didn't they do anything to stop all the bad stuff from happening with the wars between the Gym Leaders?"

"Bad stuff?" Freyja asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You know, the famines and killing," Ash said. Ash had no compulsion to delve deep into Galea's history, but the small bits that Mr. Jennings told him were enough to give anyone nightmares. And that was assuming, of course, that Mr. Jennings softened the bad parts for Ash. Anarchy, cruelty, looting, and slaughter of large populations of Pokemon and humans had been the norm for much of Galea's history.

And in Ash's opinion, the Elite Four were equally responsible for the tragedies for not interfering when they could have.

"Ah," Freyja said. "Most of them were not actually as lenient or merciful as you might think, and for that matter preferred to not involve themselves in the affairs of commoners. They were not saints, after all, you should probably remember they were once Gym Leaders like us, only far more resourceful, and as you can imagine this often entails far more cruelty. After all, obtaining all Gym Badges is the only way one can challenge the Elite Four. Unless of course you were to- OUCH!" Lady Freyja suddenly clutched her mouth.

"Are you all right, Milday?" Duke Hamnet asked. Everyone had paused and was now looking at her intently.

"I just bit my tongue," Lady Freyja said. She then glared at her Gym Badge. "I had forgotten I had made an oath on this not to mention those things because of _him_ … never mind."

"Who's he?" Ash asked.

"His Majesty, he didn't like certain things being bandied about the land after the Elite Four's fall," Lady Freyja spat out. After having some more cake, and drinking what looked suspiciously like hot chocolate, she continued. "Anyway, when one is admitted into the Elite Four, he or she formally renounces their rights over the Eight Badges for the time being, and then vows to not interfere in Galea's politics without good reason, though I'm a bit hazy on the details on what counts as a good reason- do forgive me. Anyway, then, the Champion would initiate them and tell them a few pieces about the origins of the Gym Badges, though not the entire story- and after that most of them remained secluded within their offices for extended periods of times. Some of them went decades without going out, their minds immersed in some sort of project. I once pestered Emily about it a bit too much, to which she answered that it was something that ordinary people couldn't understand."

Ash thought that it still seemed like a waste given that they were giving up control over all of Galea.

"But... I was told there wasn't a Champion," Ash said.

"Oh yes, we hadn't had one for the last five hundred or so years," Lady Freyja said. "Being the Champion was a big responsibility, and included being free of all restrictions the Elite Four had, and inheriting the secret to the Gym Badges. But, to become the Champion, one would have to beat all the rest of the Elite Four in a row. And they squabbled amongst themselves for centuries, but none of them could manage it."

This had given Ash much to think about, but also confused him since Freyja herself seemed hazy on the details.

"Well, if you won't eat anything, let's get on with the inevitable and battle," Freyja said. She got up and said, "Clear the tables and prepare the arena for our battle."

Ash got up. Truth be told, now, with his questions exhausted his stomach did feel empty, but he thought that getting it over with was better rather than sitting around just to finish dinner.

Just then, one of Lady Freyja's ladies suddenly screamed.

Lady Freyja looked at her, annoyed. "What happened, Samantha?" she asked.

"Milady, the ground's moving by itself! There's something digging under it!" Samantha answered.

Ash didn't notice anything, though suddenly he saw there was something crawling out of a hole under Pikachu's chair.

It was a Weezing.

And then there was a dark, thick smoke cloud that obscured everything.

Ash felt the earth give way beneath him and found himself falling. He would have hit the ground hard if it weren't for the two Badges he had which cushioned his fall at the last minute. Something hit his back and by the "Pika!" it suddenly cried out he guessed it was his Pikachu, who had probably either followed him or had been sucked along with him.

As Ash removed his face from the dirt, he noticed that he was in a small cavern, where there was an old woman, at least seventy, standing in front of him holding a small lantern. Besides her were an Excadrill, a Dugtrio, and a Crobat.

She seemed old, but at the same time commanding and confident, much like Agatha of Kanto's Elite Four and was dressed in an outfit that seemed too old to make too much out of what it was. She smiled though when she saw Ash.

"Milord- Your Majest- I mean, Your Highness, whatever you wish to be addressed as, I apologize for stealing you away like that, but you must understand, you cannot do battle with Freyja, for you will lose. I understand you might be upset at my method of extraction, but I was far away from here and I have only just caught up."

"Who are you?" Ash asked.

"My name is Celera," she said. "Though you might have heard of my elder sister, Emily of the Four Heavenly Kings. I have much to talk about, but we must leave- and quickly, before Freyja finds us. You have to use your Badges to hide us from her own gaze for the time being."

Ash didn't agree. No, what came immediately was a huge burst of paranoia, like that time in the Gliscor's Nest, and he was already making a plan to escape all the way back up and finishing his battle when his Pikachu left him, and began sniffing Celera's boots. It then smiled and began nuzzling her.

"Pikachu doesn't trust people that easily," Ash muttered. The abnormal tide of negative feelings, perhaps brought on by the Badges, vanished and he found himself commanding the Badges to hide them- though he had no idea how that worked. If his best pal could trust her, so could he. "But what about my friends? I can't leave them behind?"

"You have challenged her to a Gym Battle, no?"

"Yes," Ash said.

Celera looked thunderstruck. "I had hoped that perhaps you wouldn't have- but no matter, if one good thing comes out of that it is that they can't be harmed. Now let us go, I can't take all of us away."

* * *

Aboveground, once the smoke had cleared, the first thing that Gulliver noticed was that Ash and his Pikachu were both absent.

"Sir Ash is gone!" Gulliver shouted. He turned to Freyja. "What'd you do with 'im, huh?"

Lady Freyja looked at Gulliver venomously, her voice having lost its honeyed tone. "I have done nothing, brat. I was so close! He was to fight me, and I was to win! How did he escape? Why did he escape?"

"Wait, you really didn't make this happen?" Gulliver asked.

"Are you telling us that this isn't some plan of your lord's?" Duke Hamnet asked.

The entire table erupted into confusion and chaos as everyone was waving their arms or shouting. It might have turned into a complete riot if Lady Freyja hadn't shot a bolt of lightning from her Badge which knocked over a large tree.

"Now, clearly the pretender has escaped," she said. "And I cannot find him using my Badge, meaning he has shielded himself. Thankfully though he has already challenged me to a Gym Battle, and being a Gym Leader himself, that means certain restrictions, namely, that he cannot leave my demesne until the battle is over."

"What?" Gulliver asked. That was something new to him.

"Find him!" Freyja barked. "Find him, and then I will finally battle and defeat him."

Her servants rushed to comply with the order.

 **A/N: Anyway, thanks for reading, and do review if you liked.**

 **Also, you guys have been guessing for some time, well you can try again for another week, because the next chapter will reveal it. I will only add that Lady Freyja intended to fight a double battle, meaning that alongside with her Sheninja, there would be another Pokemon, which, used together, would be extremely hard to overcome no matter how weak they might be individually.**


	23. VS Freyja V

"So, where are we going?" Ash asked.

"A small hideout I know," Celera said while leading the way through the tunnels made by her Excadrill, which would occasionally turn back and collapse the way behind them so that they couldn't be followed. "We should be safe there."

Ash's mind was buzzing with questions. "You told me who you are, but not about… I mean, what was all this about kidnapping me?" Pikachu meanwhile was playing with the Crobat.

"I suppose I should start at the beginning, and then the middle, and then the end," Celera said. "Except that there really isn't an end, just a now. So, many years ago back when I was a little girl I watched my elder sister become one of the Elite Four. While I knew that was amazing, I never felt like I truly appreciated it until she vanished. Strangely though, once she had achieved full power, she grew quite distant from me and from our parents. Eventually, I moved on, and I made myself busy studying rocks in these mountains and their strange evolutionary properties. The messages from my sister became more scarce with time, and then one day when I had removed myself from one of my long retreats studying Leaf Stones, I found the region in chaos. When it calmed down slightly, I learned that the Elite Four had vanished and there was a full-fledged rebellion."

Ash tried to imagine what that must have felt like, and knew that he couldn't. He had never seen death and destruction he had seen in Galea even during his short stay, which was apparently a very peaceful period relatively speaking.

"As you can imagine, I refused to believe the stories," Celera said. "They said the Gym Leaders had defeated the Elite Four!" She turned around. "Can you imagine the absurdity? The Elite Four were more powerful than the Gym Leaders! They had the powers of all Eight Badges imbibed within their beings? How could they be defeated by those lesser to them?"

"I always thought about that too. I asked Marley and Thomdolt about it, but they both said they were forbidden to speak about some stuff related to the Elite Four's defeat," Ash said.

"There are only two possibilities, either they won in an honest battle, or trickery," Celera said. "They could not have possibly won in an honest battle, so that leaves only trickery as the answer. But what kind of trickery could have fell such titans? Anyway, I continued gathering intelligence and finally when I had heard all I could, I decided to act by avenging my sister and decided to begin by defeating these traitors. I gathered a small group of followers and challenged Freyja. She was no doubt surprised, as all eight had put measures in place to prevent challengers from appearing. I fought her, but was close to being defeated by her special strategy. I escaped, and have been on the run every since."

"What's her special strategy?" Ash asked.

"Have you heard of the move Skill Swap?" Celera asked.

"Maybe," Ash said. He had fought countless battles, but even he didn't know all the moves. "What does it do?"

"It swaps the Abilities of two Pokemon," Celera said. "What Freyja did was she challenged me to a Double Battle, and then sent out a Shedninja and a Sableye. She had the Shedninja use Skill Swap with her Sableye, so Sableye got the Wonder Guard ability. It-"

"Protects you from all attacks that aren't super effective attacks," Ash said. "Yeah, I've fought one."

"But Sableye is both Ghost and Dark type, making it weak to no attacks at all, except Fairy, and Fairy Pokemon are not native to Galea. The only ones we have were those imported long ago in times long since gone and perhaps a few people might have bred some, but they are so rare as to be almost nonexistant," Celera said. "So do you understand what I'm saying?"

Ash blinked as the gears in his head turned. "So, it is immune to all attacks except Fairy ones?" With a jolt, he realized that he didn't have a Fairy type Pokemon, or even a move that was Fairy type, and this all meant that it wasn't possible for him to deal any damage to a Sableye.

Celera nodded. "And so, despite my superior Pokemon, I was defeated and forced to flee with my Weezing. I've been in hiding ever since. Thankfully though Freyja seems uninterested in catching me and didn't think it was worth the effort hunting me down. That would be different, of course, for you. She won't stop until she's found you?"

"Wait, then how can she ever be defeated?" Ash asked. "And how come I've never heard of that strategy before?"

"Neither Shedninja nor Sabeleye can learn Skill Swap," Celera said. "She can only manage that using the Replay Badge, something she probably learned after winning thanks to her Shedninja the first time."

Ash fell silent. "You're telling me she can't be defeated without a Fairy Pokemon?"

"Nothing like that," Celera said. "It is possible, of course. I've had a long time to think of alternate ways to defeat her, but sadly the rules state that if I go to battle her again it will continue where I left off."

"So what can you do?" Ash asked.

"Oh, lots of things," Celera said. "You could defeat her Shedninja before she gets a chance to Skill Swap. Aside from that, you could use a move like Sandstorm which would eventually defeat it despite Wonder Guard. Or, you could use Skill Swap on it again, or hit it with a move like Simple Beam or Worry Seed that would change its Ability. You could also alternately inflict it with a burn or poison it using a move like Toxic."

"Then why haven't you done that?" Ash asked.

"Because, thankfully for her, none of my Pokemon know those moves and she has destroyed all TMs that teach them," Celera said. "Do you have a Pokemon that knows those moves? Or perhaps something like Poison Gas?"

Ash shook his head. "My Grimer knows Sludge though."

"That won't work," Celera said. "Wonder Guard blocks all attacks that do damage directly."

"In that case though all I need to do is catch one of them," Ash said. "Problem solved."

"Freyja saw to that," Celera said. "She had all Pokemon capable of learning those moves hunted down to the last."

'Hunted down as in… killed?" Ash asked apprehensively. Pikachu stopped flitting about peacefully and turned to look at them.

"Yes. That's what 'hunted down' usually means," Celera said as if she thought Ash was remarkably slow at understanding things. "Does that mean something different from where you come from?"

"No," Ash said. "Wait- how do you know I'm not from Galea?"

"The same way I found you," Celera answered. "I was wandering around in one of the old mountain bases when the phone began to ring. I picked it up and I heard…" she faltered for a second, "I heard my sister's voice, only it wasn't really her. It sounded broken and like the voice was coming from somewhere far away. And then I heard the voices of the other Elite Four too. They said that both Marley and Thomdolt had been defeated by a champion who came from beyond Galea. And that person would be coming to challenge Freyja soon, and did not know about her secret strategy. So then, I came as fast as I could and found you."

"Oh," Ash said. "So what do we do now? I guess the only thing left to do is for me to go back to Cinnamon City or some other place where we can find Pokemon like that."

Celera looked at Ash oddly. "Do you not know? If a Gym Leader challenges another one, they cannot leave that one's domain until the match is over."

"Huh?" Ash asked, completely bewildered. "No one told me about that."

"Perhaps they didn't know, it is a bit of an esoteric rule, after all, or perhaps they thought that it didn't matter," Celera said. "Regardless, you can't leave. It's probably because having a Gym Leader challenge you is a big deal and a big stress, so one shouldn't be allowed to flee immediately after challenging one."

"Who makes these rules anyway?" Ash asked.

"I don't know," Celera said. "Perhaps only the Elite Four did. Perhaps they were the ones who made the rules in the first place."

It was then that Ash realized he was trapped. There were no Pokemon that he could catch to help him, and he couldn't leave either.

No wonder Lady Freyja had had such a triumphant smile on her face when Ash had challenged her.

 **A/N: Okay, to answer the reviews, thank you Julie Togepi and Fenrir's Phantom. So, congratulations to Fenrir's Phantom for guessing correctly (though I have to note that a Spiritomb would work as well).**

 **In that vein though, I have an apology to make. You see, the idea for Freyja's strategy was thought up a long time back, and I don't remember Fairy Pokemon being there, or perhaps I didn't know of them. Fairy Pokemon are a rather new addition for me, and so when I thought of this, I assumed that Sableye had no weaknesses.**

 **It was actually a strategy posted on a gaming forum and I thought, cool, so I tried it out in my Pokemon Pearl, only to realize that neither Shedninja nor Sableye could learn Skill Swap. So it was a cool strategy, but not a viable one. That's where the idea for the Replay Badge's power came from (Replay as in Action Replay, the cheating device), and I put it down as a perfect strategy. I did overlook the Fairy thing though, so if seems super convenient that there are no Fairy Pokemon in Galea except imported ones and slightly deus ex machina-ey (don't know if that's even a word), well, you know the reason now. Also, it does explain why a lot of the Pokemon are heavily drawn from the older generations in the fanfic, but I didn't want to completely exclude Fairy Pokemon and the new ones, eh, I think I've gone on long enough.**

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	24. VS Freyja VI

"Wait- there's nothing we can do then!" Ash said.

"Not exactly," Celera said. "You could take out her Sableye or Shedninja before she can use Skill Swap, but I think we should have another plan in case she succeeds. Oh look- we're outside now."

The tunnel that Excadrill was making suddenly sloped upwards and they exited the tunnel.

They were in a narrow valley. There weren't any people or Pokemon around, and a small stream ran sinuously along the floor.

"I found this place some time ago," Celera said. "I don't think that Freyja knows about it since she isn't one for exploring." Her face fell. "I also buried Sheldon here."

"Who?" Ash asked.

"He was an apprentice of Arthur of the Elite Four," Celera said. "Like me, he tried opposing the Gym Leaders, but was wounded in a battle. I tried to help him, but he eventually succumbed to his injuries. I buried him here where his remains wouldn't be desecrated by others." She then turned to a small part of the wall, and gently tapped it. It crumbled to reveal a small hole. "This is a secret base. I think we should camp here for the night before we go to a mountain base where you can call your associates back home and ask for a Pokemon that can help you beat Freyja."

"I can do that?" Ash asked.

"Haven't you heard of the Pokemon Storage System? It was developed and is currently maintained by Selena." Celera asked.

"Sure I have, but that was back home," Ash said.

"Oh? You had one back where you come from too?" Celera asked.

"Mr. Jennings never mentioned it though," Ash said. "And if there is one, doesn't that mean that Selena can take the Pokemon."

"Don't worry, she can't steal anyone's Pokemon mid-transit- against the Accord set by the Gym Leaders, see a few of them like Linnea, Vanessa, and Wade have a large collection of Pokemon and would need use of it, but I don't think Marley or Thomdolt did which might explain why no one's bothered explaining it. So you can ask your aides to send you a Pokemon that can take on them."

"Oh," Ash said, suddenly very relieved. Nearby, Pikachu had fallen asleep.

"Long day, huh?" Celera said looking at the sleeping mouse.

"Nah, I think he was just on a sugar rush and it went away now," Ash said. His stomach rumbled.

"I have some food here that I nicked from the observation post," Celera said.

It was all mainly packed rations, after all, it was supposed to last for a long time, and not as good as the food back at the feast, but Ash was hungry and wolfed it down like it was gourmet. Celera had either already eaten or just didn't have an appetite.

And so, Ash tried to strike some conversation.

"Um, about those voices that came from the phone," Ash said. "I've been getting messages like that too." He played some of them on his Pokedex.

"Do you have any idea who they're from?" Celera asked.

"Nope," Ash said between mouthfuls, which was kind of rude but he didn't really care anymore. "Some people told me it was from Wade, and then they changed their minds, and I don't really know anymore."

"It was probably one of the Gym Leaders," Celera said. "Who else would have the expertise to hack your Pokedex, and have recordings of the Elite Four on hand? Only thing is I can't think of a single one who would want to do this, not even Wade."

There was a drawn out silence for a few minutes.

"During your travels," Celera asked hesitantly, "did anyone… did the Gym Leaders tell you what happened to the Elite Four?"

Ash, despite being nearly as dense as a rock, could tell that she was talking about her sister. "Umm, no, they said that no one besides Selena or the Eighth Gym Leader knew. I mean, even Freyja said that she thought it would have been hard to kill them." Ash didn't bother adding that she had also said that Selena would have probably found a way, because he didn't think that Celera needed to hear that.

"I see," Celera said, and her face visibly fell. "There is hope I suppose. Did any of them, perhaps, give some knowledge regarding the Eight Gym Leader?"

"No," Ash said. "They all said they couldn't."

Celera stroked her chin. "Quite an enigma. As far as a I remember, the Eighth Gym Leader was a man named Fredrick, and during my spying after the Elite Four fell, I learned that one day a mysterious man had suddenly appeared and defeated him, which was no small feat, given Fredrick's own prodigal skill. Several minutes after that, an explosion was heard for miles around which emanated from the Elite Four's headquarters. The very next day, this new Eighth Gym Leader had gathered the others and led them in a battle against the Elite Four. Why he did so- or why the others would support him in a suicidal venture is beyond me, though all I hear is that it was necessary somehow."

"It wasn't very suicidal," Ash said. "They won, after all. Maybe he had a plan or something."

"Then, they drew up the Accord," Celera said. "It was clear to me that the Eighth Gym Leader was the ringleader behind the whole operation, which was why he got to style himself 'First Among Equals', but I couldn't find any more information on him, not even a description of what he looks like. I- and the rest of us who resisted the Gym Leaders- didn't dare wander near Selena's or his territory, because it was clear that both outclassed us as Trainers."

"I've never really thought of him," Ash said. "I mean, the one who's mainly been fighting with me is Selena, and he's been mentioned, but I don't think any of the others like him and he doesn't seem like much of a threat. Plus, they seem to think that he's very arrogant."

"That he is of course," Celera said. "Why else would he call himself His Majesty, the Emperor? That's a title only the Elite Four Champion should have." Ash remembered Mr. Jennings voicing a similar opinion.

"I heard that there wasn't a Champion for a long time," Ash said. "What was that about?"

"To become Champion, one would have to defeat the rest of the Elite Four in a sequence," Celera said. "After the very first Elite Four Champion left, none of the others were powerful enough to take the spot and they spent a good chunk of their time fighting among themselves. Although I think some of them may have been more powerful than the others, they weren't strong enough to beat each of their comrades in a row with no rest. People thought that Emily might shake things up, but it all pretty much remained in the status quo anyway even after she joined."

"Mr. Jennings told me there was a rumor that a new Champion had been chosen just before the whole mess started," Ash said. "Did you hear about that?"

"No," Celera said, looking surprised. "That's probably just a baseless rumor. If there hadn't been a Champion for ages, how would there suddenly be a new one? None of the existing members were strong enough to take the title."

"What if there was a new one?" Ash asked.

"For that, that person would have to defeat all eight Gym Leaders to gain the right to challenge the Elite Four," Celera said. "And I would've known if the realm had been united another time."

Ash didn't say anything, but something about Celera's words seemed off. He was sure that he had heard something different, or maybe, something that had been implied that contradicted what she had said. But he couldn't remember where he had heard it, or exactly just what he had heard.

The rest of the meal passed in silence.

Once the meal was over, Ash suddenly got an idea. "Hey- do you want to battle?"

Celera looked surprised. "A battle- you mean a Pokemon Battle? Why?"

"Well, you know, just a friendly one," Ash said. "Things have gotten so serious since I've been here, and all the battles I've fought have been with strange rules or against people I knew wouldn't be going all out. So I thought it'd be nice to have a normal one- between friends."

Celera blinked. She hadn't had a battle since Freyja, and that hardly counted as a real battle. However, she was suddenly getting an odd feeling. The same sort of thrill she had when she had walked into a patch of grass for the first time as a little girl. She smiled. "All right youngling, just don't expect me to go easy on you."

Pikachu had gotten up, but Ash wasn't going to use him first. No, he started out with his Fearow.

Celera sent out her Crobat. The two Pokemon began maneuvering in the air.

"Crobat! Use Air Slash!" Celera said.

"Fearow! Dodge it and use Drill Peck!" Ash said.

Fearow wasn't able to avoid the attack completely and it nipped it on its right wing, but it pressed forward and landed a hit with Drill Peck.

It was dark out, and this gave Crobat an advantage, but Fearow was still able to hold its own. Crobat should've had an advantage, being able to use Air Slash at a distance, but Fearow got up close and so Celera instead resorted to using Poison Fang.

In the end, the two Pokemon fainted together, though Fearow fainted seconds before Crobat did.

"Excadrill! Take up the mantle!" Celera said.

Ash was confused now. The Ground/Steel typing meant that most of his Pokemon would be at a disadvantage, so he chose to go with Arcanine.

"Excadrill! Use Dig!" Celera said, clearly hoping to finish the battle before a Fire attack could be used.

Ash though, was ready for that. "Arcanine, use Dig too!" Ash said.

Arcanine also burrowed under the ground, but it soon became clear to Ash that it was a stupid mistake: Excadrill would of course have the advantage underground, especially as neither Trainer could really give commands in this sort of situation.

After a tense few minutes, the ground erupted to reveal Arcanine being tossed by Excadrill. Excadrill was now going for Arcanine's exposed underbelly, but Ash was fast. "Arcanine! Use Flamethrower!"

Arcanine opened its mouth and bathed its opponent in flames as Excadrill's claws went for his stomach; as a result of which Excadrill fell to the ground- its attack thwarted completely.

"Arcanine! Another Flamethrower!" Ash said.

Excadrill didn't survive this one, and was down for the count. But Arcanine was also pretty beat up, so Ash withdrew him.

"Skorupi! Go!" Ash said.

Celera sent out her Dugtrio, and this time the match was in Celera's favor. A single Earthquake was enough to defeat poor Skorupi.

Ash knew Grimer would probably meet the same fate, so he instead went with Pikachu.

"An Electric type?" Celera asked. "Brave choice."

"Pikachu and I have beaten Ground types before," Ash said. "And I'm not going to let a Type disadvantage stop me now! Pikachu, Iron Tail!"

Dugtrio's Earthquake was useless as long as Pikachu was in the air, and Iron Tail landed. Hard.

Still, Dugtrio took the hit and countered with a Fury Swipes, but unfortunately this led to it getting Paralyzed.

"Argh," Celera said. "Use Earthquake again! Take it out!"

Pikachu wasn't able to jump away in time, and moreover, Celera was lucky. The Paralysis didn't seem to affect the Dugtrio for the time being, and Pikachu took the hit, which knocked it out.

"Pikachu! Return!" Ash said. He didn't have any Pokemon that could avoid that Earthquake, so he knew he would have to be fast. Then an idea struck him. "Arcanine! I choose you!"

Arcanine, though battered and bruised, was still standing. "Arcanine! Use Extremespeed!"

The attack was enough to take the weakened Dugtrio out.

With a smile, Ash remembered what had happened once when Max had asked Brock what Extremespeed did, and Brock had replied, 'It's when a Pokemon's speed goes to the extreme.'

How Ash missed them.

Celera sent out her Weezing. "Weezing, Sludge Bomb!"

Arcanine wasn't able to dodge the attack in its weakened state, but might have even survived, had the attack not inflicted it with Poison as well.

And so, Ash's fourth Pokemon was also down. He then sent out his Haunter.

"I see, brilliant choice," Celera remarked. "After all, a Ghost type is immune to both Explosion and Self-Destruct, moves that a Weezing would obviously know and use in case things went bad. No wonder you're a Gym Leader."

"Oh, well, that's just how I roll," Ash said, not bothering to point out that he had just chosen Haunter on a whim, not because he had thought his strategy so far ahead.

"Haunter! Use Shadow Ball!" Ash said.

"Weezing! Sludge Bomb!"

The two Pokemon continued to bombard each other with attacks, but Ash had the upper hand thanks to the fact that Haunter was also a Poison type. Weezing held her ground bravely, but it became obvious that she couldn't resist forever, and the inevitable happened and she fainted.

"Well, I think you've just beat me," Celera said, though with a broad smile on her face. "I can't remember the last time I had so much fun though!"

"I won?" Ash said. "You don't have any more Pokemon?"

Celera shook her head.

"Well you're pretty good too," Ash said. "I lost four Pokemon before you did, so if it was a four-on-four battle, you'd have won."

"Yes, but I raised only four Pokemon so they were stronger, while someone raising six divides their attention, so that evens it out," Celera replied.

"Oh," Ash said. Back in Kanto and most of the other regions, his battles had been with people who had the same number of Pokemon, and that was what was considered fair. Maybe things were different here.

"Not to mention I wouldn't have won if I had been challenging you," Celera said. "Then you'd be able to use your special rules of both the Badges, and I'd be defeated easily then."

It had gotten very late out, so after healing both of their Pokemon Ash and Celera nearly collapsed on their makeshift beds and fell asleep.

 **A/N: Julie Togepi, thanks for the review, and it makes sense if you might not have guessed it right if you've only seen the anime. I don't remember Shedninja ever being used in the anime (though it was in a movie once) and the anime has always been wishy-washy with using Abilities, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.**

 **JayFan67, I hope Ash's plan doesn't disappoint. All he has to do is find a PC box and then transfer Pokemon before Freyja finds him and voila, he's won. At least, that's Celera's plan. And unfortunately, plans have a tendency to not work as they should, though I won't be giving away any spoilers.**

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review if you like!**


	25. VS Freyja VII

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews. First of all, I'd like to clear up some things. JayFan67 thank you for your review; I'm sorry if I didn't make this clear, but Ash is not going to access the Pokemon Storage System which is connected all the way back in Kanto with Professor Oak. There isn't any way too if even if he wanted to, because air waves can't cross the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world. If he could, he would've called his friends or asked for some Pokemon like his Charizard to help him, which he can't.**

 **Instead, they're going for the network of the Pokemon Storage System independently developed by Selena, and they're going to go ask Ash's associates, aka, Mr. Jennings, if he knows or can catch a Pokemon that can circumvent Freyja's strategy. As Celera mentioned before, there are other ways.**

 **Julie Togepi, thanks for the review, I felt like a friendly battle was something that was needed. After all, that is what Pokemon is about and it seemed to fit in with what I think Ash would've done.**

The next day came and Ash had slept far too long. He groggily got up, took whatever breakfast they could muster, and then set out.

They didn't dare fly for fear of being sighted, so they went using paths that Celera knew which were less travelled on. They skirted quite close to Kingshead, which got its name from a rock formation nearby, though Ash still couldn't see the man wearing a crown he was supposed to see when he saw the rock formation, though Pikachu could, apparently.

"We need to be careful," Celera said for the thousandth time. "Freyja largely ignored me because she didn't think I was a threat. For you though, she's probably ordering every corner of the land combed over."

As they approached the base of the mountain where the observatory was located at the peak, they decided to risk flying, though they would be trying to stay as close to the mountain as possible.

"Hey!" Ash said. "I was wondering- if you couldn't beat Freyja, why didn't you just leave and go somewhere else?"

"I maybe could've gone and defeated Marley," Celera said. "But you can't challenge two Gym Leaders at once sadly. I chose Freyja first since I thought she was the weakest, but she was lucky that I didn't have a move that could defeat her. Otherwise, I would've gone and tried to unite Galea, much as you have. And it was better to stay in Freyja's domain anyway, since she seemed least interested in catching me. The other Gym Leaders would've been far less accepting of a fugitive in their domains."

"Oh," Ash said. "I'm not really trying to unite Galea see, I just kind of want to go back. But I kind of got caught up in all this, and thing is that I sort of keep having to go forward with things."

"So if you found a way to go home right now… would you go back?" Celera asked.

Ash glanced at Pikachu. Both of them were thinking the same thing. True, Ash wanted to go back, but was he really going to let Galea sink into more mismanagement at the hands of other people? Or was he going to stick around for more examples of everything a Pokemon battle shouldn't be? Ash's battle with Celera was the only fun one that he had had since he came into Galea, making eliminating fun Pokemon battles another one of the Gym Leader's crimes. Here in Galea, battles were nothing but all-out brawls, with little respect or friendship between the Trainers.

"I don't know anymore," Ash said. "But it doesn't look like something that will happen soon, so there's not much point in worrying about it."

The observatory was not something grand, but it was well-stocked with almost everything even though it was dusty like someone had forgotten to visit it for a long time. "Doesn't anyone come here anymore?" Ash asked.

"There's not much point now that there are no invasions," Celera answered. "See? There's a phone right there, and you should be able to transfer Pokemon."

Ash noticed there was a hollow spot for a Pokeball, which had also been on the other phones that he had seen but never questioned up till now as for what they were for. They looked only slightly different from the similar machines at home though, so it should have been apparent to him pretty quickly what they were for. He really needed to start observing things a bit more.

Ash dialed a number to the headquarters in Cinnamon City, and after being redirected for over three minutes finally he saw Mr. Jennings displayed on the screen.

"Oh thank Arceus," Mr. Jennings cried out. "Sir Ash, I have been worried sick! Sir Gulliver called yesterday saying that you had vanished, and that Lady Freyja wasn't allowing them to investigate further into her domain. My goodness though, but what happened?"

Ash took about ten minutes to explain everything. "So long story short, do you have a Pokemon that can help?"

"Well, yes, though it might take me some time to get one," Mr. Jennings said. "Let's see, oh, there's a Budew that knows Worry Seed, but it is hardly a baby, and I know you don't want to evolve it prematurely. Oh, there is something else though! There is a Starmie that knows Soak! It would change your opponent to the Water type! It isn't very strong though, it was supposed to be a gift for my granddaughter, but I'm sure that Freyja's Pokemon aren't strong either, and anyway you have more need of it than my granddaughter does."

"That sounds good," Celera said. "You could then take it out using a Thunderbolt from your Pikachu. It would be an easy win."

"Just give me fifteen minutes, sir, to have it delivered here," Mr. Jennings said. Until then, Celera and Mr. Jennings mainly exchanged greetings.

"I think I'll give back Skorupi," Ash said. "No offence, but she was never particularly strong." Ash placed his Pokeball on the machine, and it vanished. Kind of like at home, but Ash noticed that the light was slower and frankly didn't look as cool.

However, the Pokemon didn't come for some time. The screen then went black.

"Huh?" Ash asked, worried now. "What just happened?"

A message had come up.

 _Apologies Trainer, but the Grand Lady Selena, the Seventh Gym Leader has decided to temporarily take the Pokemon Storage System offline. Do not worry, for your Pokemon are currently safe and sound, and once the system is back up, you may take them again. We once again apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Do please take this Quick Ball for the time being as consolation._

"Wait- can she do that?" Ash asked.

"That cunning-" Celera began and called Selena a word that Ash wouldn't have dared to say in front of his mother, or in the presence of an old lady, let alone hear from an old lady. "She must have been listening in on us as we talked to Mr. Jennings! And then she shut the system down when your Pokemon were in mid-transit since she can't do anything else about it!"

"So what can we do?" Ash asked.

"Nothing, just wait for her to restart the thing," Celera said. "This will inconvenience a lot of people, though I'm guessing that is a price that she's willing to pay if it will stop you."

"Why the Quick Ball though?" Ash asked.

"That? Oh, in case you just sent your only Pokemon, you'd be defenseless for some time, so the Quick Ball would most likely help you catch the first Pokemon you saw. It is supposed to be rather foolproof since the only ones who would get a compensatory Quick Ball would be people licensed to have Pokemon and so cannot challenge the Gym Leaders, so the Poke Balls aren't being given to commoners. It's a rather old thing, I guess they forgot to remove it," Celera said. She then frowned. "But if it was coming from Selena's company that manages the Pokemon Storage System, it should've came by now."

The screen however, suddenly turned blue instead of black and a Quick Ball came out painstakingly slowly after several minutes. "Odd," Celera said as Ash absentmindedly took the Quick Ball and pocketed it. "Why did it take so long to come?" But she didn't expound on it.

"We should probably leave," Celera suddenly said. "And we'll think of a better plan next time. Come on! Selena probably knows where we are now! She could inform Freyja!"

"Why did we bother coming then?" Ash asked.

"It was the only way, and I thought we'd be able to get the Pokemon before Selena could get Freyja to send a search party for us and I didn't count on her unplugging the whole system just to take us down," Celera said. "We have to leave quickly."

"But we have to wait for my Pokemon!" Ash said. "What if the system starts and the transfer is compelte?"

"Selena probably won't start it until she's sure you've lost, or won," Celera said. "And anyway, no one can steal a Gym Leader's Pokemon. We can retrieve it later."

As they left, it occurred to Ash that if they were caught before they could hide, or even if they could, contacting Gulliver was their only option now to get a Pokemon across the border to him. And if Lady Freyja caught up to them before Ash got a Pokemon capable of taking her down, well, then all of Galea would once again fall to the Gym Leaders.

* * *

Lady Freyja was not in the best of moods. She was currently sucking on some honey cakes when Duke Hamnet walked into her office.

"I told you I didn't want to be disturbed unless it was news of the boy," she growled. "Is it?"

"No, Milday," Duke Hamnet said awkwardly, but hoping that he would not be fired, because this was still important. "Rather, there is a phone call for you from the Gym Leader Selena so I thought-"

"I don't want to talk to her," Freyja said, pouting like a child. "Tell her that I'm not available. Aren't those my standing orders for whenever she calls me?"

"I am aware of that, Milady, but uh, the thing is that she has called twelve times already and says that she has some news of the pretender," Duke Hament said.

Freyja sighed and said, "Fine. I'll talk to her."

The moment Freyja saw Selena, she said, "Did a Porygon dress you? Because your outfit is as bo-ring as if a computer dressed you, like usual."

"And you're dressed like a Mr. Mime in a circus, as usual," Selena retorted. "But I'm not here to talk about your odd fashion choices, though they should be mentioned, but rather that I have found the pretender. He is on the easternmost mountain retreat, trying to contact his comrades for help and trying to get a Pokemon to circumvent your battle strategy."

"You know about it?" Freyja asked, now immediately losing her rather aloof demeanor and becoming visibly impatient and frightened.

"Yes, I heard the boy explain all of it," Selena said. "Quite surprising that _you_ could think of something like that."

"Wait, the boy has a Pokemon that can defeat me?" Freyja asked, now looking even more frightened.

"Not to worry, not to worry, I interrupted his plan by cutting off the power to the Pokemon Storage System during transit," Selena said.

"Wow. You conniving –" Freyja called Selena something that shouldn't be said in respectful conversation.

Selena glared at Freyja. "I just literally won you the whole battle! You could show some gratitude!"

Freyja stuck her tongue out at her. "That's all the gratitude you're going to get from me. And for that matter I know that you're doing this to help you, not me. Well, nice hearing from you. Not."

"Wait! There's something else I-" Selena said but Freyja already cut the phone.

"Hamnet!" Freyja called out. "We have to get to the Eastern Observatory as fast as possible, no, don't get a Drifblim, those things are far too slow, instead get an Altaria or something. We have to catch them before they can escape, or contact any of their associates!"

She was in such a hurry that she hadn't bothered to give a thought about Gulliver and his team, who had been staying at her villa. Aside from making a phone call, they hadn't done much.

But, as it turns out, she didn't have to bother. None of Ash's team realized that Freyja knew where Ash was, or the urgency with which she was going to meet him in battle, or how much Ash needed their help right now.

 **A/N: And that ends this chapter. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked it.**


	26. VS Freyja VIII

**A/N: First of all, JayFan67, it occurs to me I forgot to answer one of your questions. Regarding the ExtremeSpeed meme, I think that it is a meme, but I also think that Brock did say it once in the anime, though of course I don't remember. I thought it was funny enough to mention though.**

 **Thanks for your reviews, Julie Togepi and Mew292400. Yes, Selena was really sneaky, which was why the others were so shocked. And yes, you can Skill Swap Wonder Guard, but the problem is Sableye (or Spiritomb) or Shedninja can't learn them normally, which is why I added the thing with the Replay Badge. And as for ways to counter Wonder Guard, yes there are a lot, which I can mention. You can use Skill Swap on the Pokemon again to take away its Wonder Guard, you can eventually whittle its health down using Sandstorm or Hail, you can use Toxic or a move that inflicts Burn, you could use a Fairy type attack (this wasn't possible before Generation VI, so that's one thing that should be mentioned), if your opponent uses a physical based move then Rough Skin or holding a Rocky Helmet could work, you can change your opponent's type with a move like Soak, or you could change its ability using a move like Simple Beam. There are a lot of options actually, but they aren't very common ones that I'd suspect a normal Trainer would have and Freyja made sure to limit them by poaching Pokemon.**

Once Freyja knew where Ash was, it was child's play finding him. He was trying to escape the observatory - and she noticed with someone who looked familiar somehow- and was at the bottom of the peak.

"You won't run away so fast!" she screamed giddily while Hamnet, who was riding behind her on her Altaria (well it was not her's but Hamnet's technically, but whatever), tried not to vomit.

Freyja didn't take notice of it, but perhaps it was her Badge that let her avoid physiological problems like nausea and vertigo.

"Stop right there, child!" Freyja said. "We're going to fight! A single Double Battle, and you will be defeated!"

Ash looked up, and saw Lady Freyja and Duke Hamnet riding towards him and Celera. As a matter of fact, Lady Freyja was diving him at an angle so that with her ridiculous outfit with its skirt (which was almost the same as her earlier dress, except it was blue and covered with stars) and the wind billowing… eh, Ash would try hard not to think about it later and just averted his gaze.

"So you've found us," Celera snarled. A wave of despair fell over Ash and Celera, they knew they had nothing to counter Freyja's technique and now there was no way for Ash to run.

"Uh-huh," Freyja said. "Oh, now I remember, you're Emily's little bratty sister. My, how you've grown old. So you were the one who took the child away as I was about to beat him? Doesn't matter, I'll finish him first, and then you later."

"Milady, would you prefer I battle him first as a Gym Trainer?" Duke Hamnet asked. "You know, just in case-"

"No, I want this over with quick," Freyja said. "And I know he won't be able to beat me. Now, you know the rules, a Double Battle."

Freyja began immediately and sent out a Shedninja and Sableye. The Pokemon seemed to be glad just for having been let out and the Sableye seemed to quite literally kiss the earth, or maybe it was just mining for minerals- Ash had heard something like that about Sableye and he couldn't check it in his Pokedex now that the battle had started. He wondered what it would feel like to be trapped in a Pokeball for so long… and he felt a surge of rage towards Freyja.

"Nothing to it then," Ash said and sent out his Arcanine and Pikachu. He would have used Extremespeed to take out Shedninja quickly and so ruin Freyja's strategy, but the thing was that both of those Pokemon were Ghost types. "Quick! Arcanine! Use Flamethrower on Shedninja! Pikachu, use Thunderbolt on the Sableye!"

Freyja however, had been anticipating this strategy. Sableye jumped in front of Shedninja and used Protect, so both attacks merely bounced off of it. Shedninja then used Skill Swap as Protect wore off, and the deed was done.

"No!" Celera said, almost pulling her hair in frustration. "No!"

Freyja grinned maliciously. "Oh, I've heard the jokes for a long time about me. How all the rest think I'm stupid and crazy. Well, tell me, who's stupid now?"

"I think they were right about the crazy part though," Ash said.

"Bah!" she said, snarling. "Your head will prove a nice decoration for my dining table- I don't think I'll give you the honor of being trampled under Rapidash."

And that was that. Shedninja fell easily once it was stripped of its Wonder Guard and because the only move it knew was Skill Swap thanks to the Replay Badge, but beyond that, Sableye was now untouchable, a fact that Freyja did her utmost to take advantage of.

Still, it might have been untouchable, but it was also still _very_ weak. As such, Ash had another idea: exhaustion. His Pokemon would simply move very fast, and eventually the Sableye would become too tired to battle. One by one, his Pokemon fell though, because being hit with attacks, no matter how weak, was much worse than simply jumping around.

And the thing was that Ash could never order them to blatantly run away or his Badges started humming. Clearly, being a Gym Leader unlike Celera, he couldn't run away form this fight, which made him remember what Mr. Jennings had said, "Power is never without price." It didn't help that his thoughts kept drifting to what would happen to him, Celera, and the rest of the people who had supported him if he was going to lose. Ash had no doubt that he and Celera would both be killed now unless Celera ran, which he would ask her to do if things go too bad, and he tried to divert his mind from what would happen to Gulliver, Mr. Jennings, and the others. From what he had seen, Freyja, and all the other Gym Leaders as well, were very, very vindictive.

Their battle continued for the next six hours as Sableye grew more and more exhausted, but Freyja wouldn't let it stop and it didn't seem that it would collapse for at least a few more hours. By then though, Ash was down to just two Pokemon: his Haunter and his Grimer.

It took twenty minutes for Grimer to faint.

Then, as Freyja tried ordering her very exhausted Sabeleye to do something else, her Badge began humming. Ash's Badge was humming also. He found that he couldn't order his Pokemon to do anything- the words would dry up in his mouth, and neither could Freyja.

"What happened?" Ash asked.

"I don't know, we must be breaking the rules somehow," Freyja muttered. "Wait- this is a Double Battle, you have to have two Pokemon out at all times if you can. Do you have another Pokemon?"

"No, my Skorupi was lost in that weird glitch, and all I got back was an empty Quick Ball," Ash said. He tried giving another command, but he couldn't. And he hadn't miscounted, he _had_ sent out all five of his Pokemon.

"What are you doing?" Freyja asked. "Quit stalling! We've been fighting for over six hours! You can't escape either, since your friend over there can't interfere."

"I'm not stalling," Ash said. "I don't know what's wrong!" And then he thought of something.

It was insane, but seemed to be somewhat of a possibility, or rather the possibility of a possibility being there. What if that Quick Ball… hadn't been empty?

Ash hesitantly took it out and opened it. He expected it to reveal nothing inside, but instead a brilliantly colored Roserade appeared. It wasn't a Shiny, but its health clearly showed through the sheen of its leaves and petals.

"When did you catch that?" Celera asked.

"I didn't! It isn't mine!" Ash said. "It just came out from that Quick Ball we got!"

Ash didn't even have to give the Roserade directions or any orders. Once it was out, by it's own volition it simply used a move on Freyja's Sableye that shot a seed at it that Hamnet recognized as Worry Seed, and then used a Vine Whip to take it out. The Vine Whip did damage, surprisingly, and the Sableye fainted. Freyja had no more Pokemon left, for she had never thought that she'd need more.

"That move must have been Worry Seed, it changes the opponent's ability to Insomnia," Celera said. "Wait- why did I have to wait over six hours then if you had that all along?"

"I told you, I didn't know I had it!" Ash said.

Freyja gave a loud cry of despair as her Replay Badge moved away from her and pinned itself to Ash's chest.

Like with Thomdolt, Ash felt his feelings of being in a foreign land wash away. No, this place wasn't foreign- it was his home, his kingdom, his territory, his-

"Um, well done Sir Ash," Duke Hamnet said, interrupting his train of thought. "Ur, I hate to be the one to ask this now that you've won, but can I keep my job? I really never liked Freyja anyway."

"Traitor!" Freyja snarled and tried striking Hamnet but was stopped by his Altaria.

"No, no, Hamnet is not your slave anymore," Hamnet said with a grin.

"Alright, if you're well behaved you can keep your job," Ash said. He wiped his brow and healed all his Pokemon.

Then, his Pokedex began beeping as he received another message from his mysterious benefactor. As always, the message was spoken by four different voices all overlapping with each other, and one of them was one that Celera recognized very well. The message went:

 _We hope that you enjoyed our gift, and your victory handed to you thanks to our Roserade. Feel free to keep it._

"First of all though, I want to sleep," Ash said, ignoring the message for now. He would have to check what the Roserade could do later on. "This has been a long day."

"Yes, though I think first of all, Sir Ash, given our circumstances, I'm assuming that you'll want some food transported back to your other regions?" Duke Hamnet. "Yes, I believe I should get in touch with a certain Mr. Jennings regarding this."

* * *

Selena and Linnea were having another one of their conferences.

"How did she lose?" Linnea asked. "You reassured me that she had a brilliant strategy- and though I'm loath to admit it and quite shocked she could have thought of something as brilliant as that- it should've worked! What in the name of Landorus went wrong?"

"Well, see, I blocked the Pokemon transfer by shutting the system down," Selena said. "But, well, you know how the system gives out a Quick Ball when that happens as compensation for the inconvenience caused or if a Pokemon were to show up? One was never sent from my company to the boy, but someone else managed to get into my systems somehow and instead sent a Quick Ball holding a Pokemon- a Roserade apparently, and it helped that brat win. I tried to warn Freyja that the boy had a sixth Pokemon, but she disconnected before I could."

"Someone hacked _your_ system?" Linnea exclaimed. "No one in Galea has that much skill!"

"Exactly what confounds me," Selena spat out reluctantly. "There is quite literally no one I know better than me at what I do and yet someone got the upper hand. It isn't just about being more skilled though… no one can possibly get the equipment needed to make something that rivals mine. All of the best transistors and chips are manufactured in my domain- the best Thomdolt could do was to make a few wires. Who could've done this? I would almost believe Wade… could it be possible that Wade has had more help from outside? That he managed to bring someone from outside who knows more about technology than I do?"

"What is that but a theory?" Linnea said. "Anyway, he will be coming for me next. How is our plan to starve him out?"

"Not going as well as I'd have hoped," Selena said. "I would've hoped for them to have stooped to resorting to cannibalism, Trainers eating their own Pokemon, you know, like they did at the Siege of Alamut during the reign of Hoplite IV, but this pretender's realms are currently well-stocked as far as I can tell for at least a few weeks more, and Freyja didn't agree to burn her reserves of food as Thomdolt did. As such, her domain didn't really have much surplus food anyway, but it will slow down their demise due to starvation."

"He will try to reach me then," Linnea said. "I will be more than ready though. If he thought winning a victory over those three was a victory… he was sorely wrong."

Selena nodded. "Take care then."

 **A/N: And that ends that! I hope you enjoyed the surprise as to how Ash won. I know it might seem a bit like a deus ex machina, but I did sort of hint that the Quick Ball wasn't all it seemed last chapter and that Selena had something to say so it wouldn't seem too much random or as if it had been pulled out of nowhere.**

 **That said, onto something that Mew29240 said, and something that I've been wondering about also: getting someone else into Galea. It probably won't happen until we reach around Wade, but I think I have two choices. I could either go and add someone for comic relief, like Team Rocket, or perhaps something romantic, most likely Serena I guess since she was the most recent, though I confess I know nothing of her character as I haven't seen X & Y. I was also maybe considering Brock, but I don't want to start bringing in too many people... which is why I want to know what you guys think.**

 **I will point out though that regardless of who I add, the change will only be superficial really, and though it might add a bit more of fun to the story, the plot will essentially remain the same and won't change much by adding one character, and the main focus of the story will still be mystery and adventure.**

 **Thanks for reading, as always, and do review if you liked! It reminds me, at this point, we've crossed the 50k word mark, and we've just only slightly ended Freyja now.**


	27. VS Freyja IX

**A/N: Thanks for your reviews, Mew29240, JayFan67, and Julie Togepi.**

 **To answer your questions, thanks, because I wasn't sure if the hidden Roserade was believable enough. I mean the main thing was that while I built it up to make it look like Ash might lose, I mean, this is a fanfic, and I know deep down everyone knows that this would kind of be a lame story if it ended up right there. It is kind of like watching a superhero movie when they show the main character in mortal danger in like fifteen minutes... and you know that it isn't going to end because there's still an hour of movie left.**

 **Battling for six hours is tough, but I took that from the Pokemon Special manga where it was mentioned that Professor Oak fought Agatha for what I think were five, six, or eight hours (I honestly don't remember which) for the title of Pokemon League Champion. I just wanted to point out how weak Freyja's Pokemon were. And yes, Selena is very cold. Once again, there's history to look back on when you see how bad sieges and starving out the enemy could go. But we'll go into more about Selena in her own arc.**

Surprisingly, Duke Hamnet found that not much had changed.

Whenever there was a regime change, there was usually a crisis that followed involving purging of various rebellious elements, the execution of several dozen people or so, and a mass spectacle of the defeated Gym Leader being executed in a highly elaborate way, usually involving Rapidash.

None of that had followed.

Honestly, support for Lady Freyja was so low as to be nonexistent, almost everyone had been allowed to keep their jobs, and Freyja was currently being confined, being of no threat anymore. Celera, meanwhile, had withdrawn to 'take care of some things,' and Sir Ash had done nothing to stop her, letting her roam the region as she pleased.

That said, Sir Ash didn't have much time for governance, so most of the important work fell on Duke Hamnet's shoulders- in other words, this part was also pretty much left unchanged from Freyja's regime, except that he and his staff no longer had to wear funny costumes.

However, Duke Hamnet had been slightly raised in position, taking over duties that used to belong to Mr. Jennings, though the old man had refused to step down completely, partly, Duke Hament felt, because Mr. Jennings didn't trust him.

Currently, Hamnet was in a meeting with Ash, and Mr. Jennings was also present via a telephone.

"So, the most important thing right now, Milord, is the food supply," Hamnet said. "While our areas are currently well-fed rather nicely and will survive, and it seems that Marley's earlier realm is also doing fine, Thomdolt's previous domain is going to run out of grain soon since its ecosystem was completely destroyed. We are going to need to so something drastic if we don't want a famine on our hands in the coming months."

"So, Linnea still won't trade with us?" Ash asked.

"No, we don't produce anything of particular import that she would need immediately," Hamnet said.

"And do you have stockpiles of food?" Ash asked.

"We do, but Lady Freyja didn't consider it necessary to keep a very large stockpile," Hamnet said. "You see, most of our people are comfortable living off the land and tending the herds so we were not very dependent on external sources of grain anyway. Not to mention our population is not very large, so what reserves we have might only last a few weeks rather than a few months for a larger region like Thomdolt's. It appears that your people miscalculated several things when projecting how long the food would last before."

Mr. Jennings puffed up. "We didn't have the use of our computers then, and we've barely had time to calibrate Thomdolt's records and assimilate them into our own."

"Regardless point is, we don't have enough food," Duke Hamnet said.

"As such, in a roundabout way, we all reach the same conclusion," Mr. Jennings said. "We have to press forward with our campaign. Now, we currently border territories of both the Sixth and Fourth Gym Leader, the first to the Northeast and the other to the Northwest. We could press onwards towards either of them, or turn and try to strike at Wade's domain, though I would advise against that as it seems, for now, that Wade might be a potential ally."

"He hasn't said anything though," Ash said. Ash was honestly getting quite fed up of the Fifth Gym Leader. He was refusing to take up Ash's calls, and the messengers that they sent were always turned away empty-handed. If he was an ally, he was doing a rather terrible job of showing it.

"Regardless, we don't have many ships," Mr. Jennings said. "And though we might get food from Wade's domain, it would be seafood which isn't the staple diet of most of our people. And we do not know much about Wade's whereabouts, and he could hide almost endlessly in the vast sea."

The last bit was exceptionally true, as Wade's domain was, in terms of area, the largest of all the Gym Leader's, though most of it was water.

"The Sixth Gym Leader, Vanessa, has a domain almost as large as Linnea's, but it largely either desert or tundra," Mr. Jennings said. "So that leaves targeting Linnea as the most logical choice."

Ash then checked the map of Galea they had on a table. He was able to tell easily that Linnea's territory was, in terms of area, larger than all of his combined. Not to mention much more populated by both Pokemon and people.

"What's her special rule?" Ash asked.

"Ah, allow me," Duke Hamnet said. "You see, the Fourth Gym Badge, the Tempo Badge, symbolizes the region's connection not only to the fertility of the soil, but also to the ancient songs passed through the region and the control of the Gym Leader over the land by singing the song of the earth, thereby easing how crops are grown."

"You didn't answer my question," Ash said pointedly.

"Ah, apologies," Duke Hament said. "Lady Freyja usually liked a bit of exposition. Linnea, on account of the musical connections of the Badge, is allowed to use an octet to face a challenger."

Ash just stared at Hamnet blankly.

"An octet means eight," Mr. Jennings said. "So she can use eight Pokemon in battle instead of the usual six her opponent is restricted too. And she is a very proficient battler, unlike those you have faced, and so are her Gym Trainers. I do not have much information regarding her Pokemon, but I do believe it was said that she used a Liligant as one."

Duke Hamnet nodded. "She would be formidable enough of an opponent, sir, even without her added advantage of numerical superiority."

"I've been training," Ash said. "And I think it'd be fine to face someone who is just strong but otherwise normal and isn't looking for some wacky method that borders on cheating. Eight Pokemon isn't that much more than six."

"Well, then, both Wade and Linnea are known to be experienced battlers," Duke Hamnet said.

"Yes, but even one could make the difference between victory and defeat. I would also suggest that we could maybe strip some of the mountain ranges of their forest and begin cultivation there," Mr. Jennings said.

"Uh, I would advise against that," Duke Hamnet said. "That would destroy a lot of our important forest cover and habitats for our Pokemon, not to mention it would hardly help in the crisis. Also, very few people would want to relocate to the mountainsides for farming."

"Okay, don't tear down the forests or anything," Ash said. "Have you guys figured out where the Roserade came from? Or where the calls are coming from?"

Ash had managed to get his Pokemon back when the Storage System was back up, which was 'surprisingly' only minutes after he had defeated Freyja, and had as such currently swapped out his Grimer for Mr. Jenning's Arcanine.

As a training exercise, Ash had his Pokemon battle each other.

All five of them together weren't able to defeat Roserade. She was not just extraordinarily powerful, but it was obvious by the way that it battled that she also had lots of battle experience. She was capable of moving and fighting on her own, though she didn't disobey Ash if he gave her an order, however, Ash noticed that she seemed to already move before the order was given and seemed to be able to predict what Ash was going to say. Whoever had trained her had probably made it so that she could fight on her own.

His other Pokemon started to mimic this which might have turned out useful later on. Ash had even thought that she might have been Gregor's lost sixth Pokemon he had heard of, but she didn't seem _that_ powerful so that theory went mostly out the window.

Regardless, it was clear that a Pokemon that strong was probably from another Gym Leader or a Trainer of that level.

It scared him slightly because it meant that someone, somewhere in Galea, had a Pokemon like that and was apparently able to give it away; meaning that it was probably not their own strongest one.

As such, Ash had spent large amounts of time training. He had also begun using equipped items, like Quick Claws and the like. He couldn't help but think that if his Pokemon had been just a little bit stronger, he could have lasted longer against Freyja and she would've lost due to her Pokemon getting fatigued anyway. He didn't want to leave anything to chance now.

The end result of this was that Fearow and Arcanine were now capable of fighting Roserade one-on-one and each ended up getting a draw only thanks to the type advantages. Otherwise, Ash needed two Pokemon to defeat her.

"We haven't had any leads on that," Duke Hament said. "A Roserade could have been caught as a Roselia or a Budew, and neither of them are particularly rare. Marley's earlier domain also had a few, and so did our territory at one time. I'm no expert, but I wouldn't consider it beyond the realm of possibility for Linnea or Vanessa to be able to get one, or for one to be traded across the Gym Leaders, something that did happen occasionally."

"But, a Roserade would need a Shiny Stone to evolve," Mr. Jennings said. "Thankfully, there are not that many in Galea. A few of them were mined earlier by Marley, and a few in the mountain ranges. I've gone through records of various sales and I don't see one having been sold, and once again sadly we can't discount the fact that there could have been one in another place, or found beneath the ocean."

Ash nodded. "And Roserade doesn't have any special markings or anything either."

"No. Disregarding that," Duke Hamnet said, "I would like to propose a plan of attack. Up till now, Sir Ash, you have been invading the other Gym Leader's territories in small groups, finding them, and then challenging them to battle. This no doubt has some benefits, but I would suggest that rather than that this time, we take a small army and lay siege to the city of Aroughs in Linnea's territory that lies very close to our border. It houses a very large supply of grain, and could feed our realms for quite some time, and would help us establish a base from where we could gather intelligence for further strikes."

"Lay siege?" Ash asked. "As in, we'll try to take the city before getting the Gym Badge? Isn't that… um, illegal?"

Duke Hamnet and Mr. Jennings stared at Ash blankly for a very long time, as if unsure how to proceed. Finally, Duke Hamnet decided to try, "It appears that Milord is rather honorable in his dealings, but I would point out that this is war after all. When an opportunity arises to take your enemy's resources, one generally seizes the opportunity with all haste. Not to mention it will technically be all yours once you defeat Linnea."

"I would also point out that this is how war was done earlier," Mr. Jennings said. "Two Gym Leaders would usually gather large armies and engage in battles as one of them would invade the other's territory."

"But, isn't that a waste of time?" Ash asked. "I mean, everything does come down to two people fighting in a Gym Battle, right? So why bother gathering an army anyway?"

"Ah, yes," Mr. Jennings said. "But I believe you are, ah, forgetting that the challenger must face the Gym Leader with a handicap: the other Gym Leader's special rule. By destroying large tracts of an opponent's property by looting, burning, and slaughtering the enemy population, a Gym Leader could force his rival to challenge him, thereby giving him a huge advantage. On the other hand, if he had directly engaged his opponent, he would be the one forced to play against a special rule."

"But _I_ have to challenge her anyway," Ash said. "So what's the point?"

"Several things," Duke Hamnet said. "As I a gather it, Milord would like to try and train before confronting Linnea, and with a base inside her realm we would be able to train in greater ease and against the wide variety of Pokemon present in her realm, possibly against several trainers that she had trained first to get an idea of what battling her would be like, as opposed to simply going to battle her directly. Furthermore, the grain supplies would help alleviate our problems for the time being and quell any rumors going on that there will be a famine soon."

"But that's not just it," Ash said. "Won't it take time for the siege to happen? And won't people… well, be killed during it?" Those were the main two things that appealed to Ash about going in alone, or at least, with only a small group of people. He wouldn't have to worry about organizing a large group, and it kept the innocent people in Galea, who had nothing to do with the Gym Leader's rule out of stuff until it was over. Though he had to admit that the last thing wasn't true with Thomdolt, in which case there had been extensive damage to the land and to various people who had been forced to flee their homes due to pollution or simply fear of the invaders.

"I doubt it," Duke Hament said. "We have an advantage there. No one can challenge you, Sir Ash, to a battle according to the Accord, so Linnea can't do anything against you. She wouldn't have let many people keep Pokemon anyway, and more likely than not I believe that Aroughs will simply surrender rather than risk a fight. As such, if you'll give me the permission, I will personally organize and lead the campaign."

It wasn't very convincing to Ash, not to mention there was also the fact that Duke Hamnet seemed to be getting far too excited about this, perhaps for reasons of personal glory or maybe just sitting on the sidelines bored him.

 **A/N: That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	28. VS Linnea I

Selena found herself, as she had often found herself, lost in an uneasy sleep. For a moment, it was blissful, only to be suddenly interrupted by a dream so vivid it could not have simply been a figment of imagination.

She was in an empty Pokemon arena, and opposite to her was a man in a mask. The seats were empty and yet sounds of cheering and booing still came.

And, like she had a thousand times before, she began battling him.

And, like all those times, she lost and fell to her knees.

The man started laughing and removed his mask to reveal a face that Selena had grown to hate more than any face in the world. His Majesty's face.

Soon, catcalls echoed from the empty seats. Leering and jeering at her. Mocking her, how she, once a Trainer without peer, was now simply second best.

Second best to the Emperor.

She woke up, screaming, not something her staff were unused to. They came, inquired for her well being, left some snacks and water if she needed it, and then left.

She turned and attempted to go back to sleep again… she would need it to deal with her ever-growing list of problems. The pretender was now poised to invade Linnea's territory any day now, and yet His Majesty, for all his greatness, had still done nothing; leaving her to deal with the problem alone.

And therein lay the canker in her heart. She could not bear that she was second best to him and that he currently occupied a place that was higher than hers, a place that was, in her opinion, rightfully hers to hold.

The nightmares had started several months after they had overthrown the Elite Four, and over the years their repeated occurrence had nearly driven her mad. But she didn't snap- no, she didn't- she channeled her hatred towards the one who deserved it.

Soon, she would overthrow both the pretender and the one whom she hated even more than him, His Majesty. Soon, she would hold sway over all of Galea.

She fell asleep, not unaware of the familiar sensation that she was being watched.

The room however, to all appearances, was entirely empty except for her.

* * *

Linnea had been training nearly non-stop. Not only had she continued to push herself, she had also ordered her Gym Trainers to start training again.

She had won her territory over sixty years ago, but with the coming peace of the Gym Leader's Accord, while she had not slipped completely into inactivity like Marley, with all threats out of sight they were similarly out of mind as well. A result of that was that she had to put in some considerable effort to remember things about battling she had forgotten, and to whip herself and her Gym Trainers in shape.

Among the foremost of her Gym Trainers was her old tutor Li-han, her right-hand man, and most trusted advisor, despite the fact that he disagreed with her so many times she spent a not-inconsiderable time wondering if she should dismiss him.

"I need time to fully bring my Gym and my Pokemon back to fighting capacity," Linnea said. "I do not doubt that that child will try and invade before that occurs. In that event, order the people to abandon their cities immediately, and to burn the grain stores and anything that might be useful to the enemy. I do not think that their food supplies will last for too long."

The old man, who had by this point been reduce to using a cane for support said, "A scorched earth strategy, my child? It would potentially displace millions of people!"

Linnea glared at him. Li-han didn't even flinch. By this point he was probably too old to care what people thought of him, or to care what Linnea might do if she got too upset.

"Tell me, sensei, what was the population of this territory before I seized control of it after two years of war?"

"Twelve million," Li-han said.

"And how many were left at the end?" Linnea asked.

"A little over two million," Li-han said. "Many still remember the terrible famines, the-"

"I do not want the details again, I was there, in case you have forgotten," Linnea said. "And how does our population currently stand?"

"Approaching ten million," Li-han said.

"Then let it go back to two," Linnea said. "That can't possibly be that huge of a loss."

Her mentor was about to say something else, so she angrily interjected, "You do not understand, sensei, as I do. I _must_ stop this child. If he gets past me, he will continue to attempt to return to his home, and will destroy the barrier as a result. When that happens…, well, it is necessary sometimes for a surgeon to amputate a limb rather than letting the patient die…." she trailed off, not sure if she should say more, or if she would even be allowed to say any more.

"There is another, small matter," Li-han said, his face visibly showing how broken he was from the inside. Linnea suppressed images of the earlier famine from popping up, but clearly Li-han couldn't. "There is a man by the name of Alan Lazar requesting asylum."

"I know," Linnea snapped. She had read the report.

Alan Lazar was the Elite Four's earlier secretary- he had managed their personal affairs for a time before ultimately betraying them when that prat His Majesty decided to overthrow the Elite Four. As such, he was one of the few people in all of Galea save for the Gym Leaders who knew the true reasons why they had rebelled, and as such once the rebellion was over he was offered a simple choice: he could go join his former employers, or he could swear upon the Gym Badges that he would not mention what had happened to anyone and join the Gym Leader's organization.

Being a pragmatic person, he chose the later option- and it turned out that he didn't lack talent. He was assigned as Selena's left-hand man very quickly.

Apparently though, Mr. Lazar had had a falling out with his mistress and was urgently seeking protection from her. The details were all hazy- there was only so much one could jam into a written letter that had to be carried by a Taillow so that it wouldn't be caught by Selena.

"He has sent us another letter though," Li-han said. "He says that in exchange for protection he is willing to part with certain information regarding his mistress that he assures you will be worth your while. As of yet, he has not formally broken down relations with Lady Selena yet, but says that he does have a way out of her domain and into ours."

Linnea seriously considered this proposal for a moment. What information could he have on Selena that would be considered so valuable? It could be a bluff… but then he must have known that Linnea would kill him if he did, and unlike Selena she wouldn't do it with any remorse or a hint of mercy for all the years of his service.

What intrigued her even more though, was that what caused this sort of rift to appear in the first place. Alan Lazar was known to be quite loyal to their overall cause… what had changed in the past few weeks?

At the same time though, Linnea was not certain she could hide him without Selena knowing, and she did not want to ruin her relationship with the Seventh Gym Leader.

Truth be told, Selena was the only Gym Leader that Linnea sort of got along with, and Selena and Linnea were perhaps the only people among the Gym Leaders whose relationship could be termed as 'somewhat being like friends.'

After all, let's look at the others: Marley was usually too lazy to do anything, let alone socialize. Thomdolt mainly angered everyone with his exorbitant prices, complete lack of concern for the ecosystem, and truth be told, scared them with his knowledge of poison. Freyja was mainly the laughingstock of the whole group. Wade was known to be quite remorseful of how they had treated the Elite Four and occasionally openly voiced his criticism of the policies they had adopted after, and anyway, he was probably the one who brought the pretender into Galea. Vanessa didn't truly care for anyone, and of course, His Majesty was no one's friend. Most of them regarded each other more as enemies than as allies.

Of course wasn't as if Linnea had any affection for Selena- she didn't doubt that Selena would order her killed if it suited her, but the truth was also the same the other way around. And in a way, Linnea respected what Selena was willing to do for the protection of Galea, and the two woman had mutual respect for the other. Not to mention Selena did scare Linnea a bit, while the two talked like equals, Linnea knew that in their relationship, she was the inferior one.

In the end, she didn't consider some information worth the risk of offending Selena, not with the pretender about to strike. "Tell Alan that he should go lick the heel of some other Gym Leader- he will not receive asylum from us." She did however, decide not to inform Selena about it. Perhaps, after the pretender had been dealt with, she could restart negotiations with him.

Linnea didn't even formally dismiss her tutor- she just went back to training. Li-han slowly turned and shook his head, a tear flowing down his cheek as he thought of what was to happen to the people.

As for the reply, Li-han sent a Chatot this time to make sure no suspicious would be aroused from Selena… though his hands still trembled while he attached the letter. Selena's information network was the stuff of legends; she was rumored to be nigh-on omniscient when it came to what happened around Galea. Technically, Li-han was protected by being under Linnea's command.

Then gain, Li-han wasn't worried for himself.

* * *

 **Professor's Oak Laboratory, Outside of Galea**

Professor Oak's hair had seen better days. Several days of no showers and of groping around in dusty corners of his laboratory and other places had made it look little better than a crop field recently devastated by a tornado.

The rest of Professor Oak wasn't faring much better.

The cause of the Professor's distress- the disappearance of one Ash Ketchum, a child he had watched over for so long he was now almost more of family than his actual grandson.

And, six weeks earlier, he had disappeared! His only clue was that Ash had been in the vicinity of what locals called a freak storm- a storm that had literally swept out of nowhere and had been gone in under ten minutes. There were reports of odd electromagnetic activity emanating from the storm, and more than one person reported seeing odd shapes in the clouds.

He had made no headway though. Ash's mother had tried to seem not to been too worried, she seemed to believe that her son would turn up any minute now with the tale of a latest adventure, but Oak could tell that she too was worried.

Oak had believed that Ash might turn up any day for some time too. But there was tracking software within Ash's Pokedex- he had to contact the Pokemon League and explain the emergency before getting permission to see it of course- only to see that Ash was currently nowhere. And it wasn't as if the Pokedex was broken, no, if it was broken (a highly unlikely occurrence given how durable it was, otherwise Ash would have broken it long ago) the signal emitting mechanism was separate and would still keep transmitting. Not to mention another signal would be given if a circuit had broken.

But none of those things. No, the Pokedex seemed to have straight up just vanished without a trace.

And so, Professor Oak had _tried_ to investigate on his own, to come to a complete and total dead end.

There was a knock on his door and Professor Oak sighed. It was probably Professor Sycamore, who, also being a fan of Ash, had decided to 'help' with the effort… meaning most likely he was going to interfere and/or give some ridiculous crackpot theory, Professor Oak thought.

It _was_ Professor Sycamore. After a shake of hands and the usual useless greetings, Professor Sycamore smiled as if he had the solutions to all of Professor Oak's problems (in reality he was a cause of most of them) as he unrolled some very, very, old-looking documents.

"What language is this?" Professor Oak asked.

"Ah, first let me explain where this came from," Professor Sycamore said. "This is with greetings from the library of Scepter Four itself."

Professor Oak would have face palmed if he wasn't so tired. Scepter Four was rumored to be a shifty secret society allegedly responsible for almost all that went unseen around the world.

The reality was far less glamorous; they were the adult equivalent of a group of kids coming to share scary stories around a campfire every week. Oak knew this because he had been a member way back in his university days as an undergrad.

"It isn't that bad, this one has some credible sources," Sycamore said as he noticed Oak's expression. "It is quite an interesting thing regarding the area where Ash disappeared." He shifted the stack of papers he had brought to show what was a very old- and also incorrect map of Kanto. The outline of the continent was drawn wrong, and it seemed almost unrecognizable compared to a modern map of Kanto in some places. "Now, this is a map by sixth century cartographer Vesuvius, though you may note it is inaccurate in various places. Take a look at this…" He pointed to what looked like a large land mass towards the east.

"What is that, Johto?" Oak asked.

"No, Johto is towards the west," Sycamore said. "This island, or land mass, is alternatively called Galliuh, Galiah, Galia, Zalea, or Galea in various chronicles depending on whose work you're reading. Apparently, this used to be rather close to both Kanto and Kalos in the past."

"And what does this have to do with a Trainer disappearing?" Oak asked.

"Well, you see, the problem is that this region- it doesn't actually exist," Sycamore said. "It is mentioned far too many times for it to just be the stuff of legends, but you only need to look on a modern map to see that there isn't anything like it." Sycamore then pulled out another map, this time one that showed the region of the seas near the Sevii Islands. It was a plot of various currents and was clearly a modern map. "This is from my friends at the Sevii Islands' Naval Research Lab." He pointed to a certain spot. "If I'm not wrong, Ash disappeared around here, right?"

"Yes," Oak said, finding himself interested despite himself.

"Well, there is something you might have heard of called the Nathan Problem- after the famous oceanologist- no? Well, basically, the currents around the Sevii Islands don't add up according to expected patters. Initially, most people thought this was due to inadequate research or primitive computer models, but it became increasingly clear that they deviated so much that there was something else responsible for it. It was then though that a certain student got a rather crazy idea, and in fiddling with the computer models he realized that there was only one thing that could cause such a large deviation- if there was a huge land mass somewhere along the lines of right here." He pointed to a spot east of Kanto. He then pulled out another drawing. "Based on how the currents changed, he got the computer simulator to plot what the land mass would look like and this is what he ended up with."

Professor Oak looked at a continent roughly the size of Kanto, with a rather large island to the north and several smaller islands scattered around it.

Sycamore then took out another, older, map. "This is what Galea was supposed to have looked like."

The two maps did coincide well, or at least as well as one could expect given how they had been drawn- one was made using ancient cartographic methods and the other was made based on deviations of ocean currents. Errors were to be expected.

"This old map is the most detailed one I've found," Sycamore said. "And, reportedly, whoever drew it actually happened to go to this place- which he called Galea as the inhabitants of the region called it."

Oak took a closer look at the map, and he couldn't help but notice the details. The one made by the computer just showed the outlines of the place, but this showed various details. "What are all of these lines? And…. why are parts of the map shaded different colors?"

"I'm not sure," Professor Sycamore said. "There are numerals written in the shaded areas as well, going from one to eight. Based on some written records, I think they somehow demarcate territories that Galea is divided up into."

"Eight territories?" Oak asked. The first three were relatively small and at the southern tip of the continent, while the fourth and the sixth were very large and towards the north. The fifth seemed to take up a large portion of the ocean and the smaller islands. The seventh was at the tip of the continent, while the eighth was the large island to the north of the continent. There was also a star marked in the eighth territory, but Oak couldn't tell what it meant.

"Yes, each ruled by a separate warlord- or at least that's all much I can fathom from whatever I've read. The records speak of people wielding fantastic power there in the form of what I can gather to be gemstones," Sycamore said. "Anyway, the real reason I know so much about this is because this was supposed to be the country that invaded Kalos so long ago."

Professor Oak raised an eyebrow. "You mean, that entire war in which the king, AZ, had his Pokemon killed?"

Professor Sycamore nodded. Everything that had happened in the past year didn't need to be repeated between them, which all included what Team Flare had done and what had happened to Sycamore's old friend, Lysandre.

"The story goes that these eight factions continuously warred against one another for power and supremacy," Professor Sycamore said. "Until they were united under one rule by a woman who crowned herself Empress. After maintaining a period of relative peace, her eyes began to drift towards other territories and she launched a full-scale attack on Kalos. She was repelled, eventually, and then a weapon was built by AZ to take revenge on Galea. However when the weapon fired at Galea it was apparently deflected somehow by… well, the sources aren't clear on this, but apparently the warlords and the Empress had some sort of special powers to defend themselves as long as they were within Galea, which was why they didn't want to leave to come and personally attack Kalos and instead sent soldiers in their stead. After that when AZ's Flabebe left him, the king's younger brother took over and initiated peace talks with Galea. The Empress was haughty and would have none of it, and twenty years later she massed another enormous army and sent it to try and conquer Kalos again. This time, a typhoon came and washed away most of her fleet before they even landed, and what ragtag group did manage to reach their destination surrendered. After that, there seemed to be what I can make out to be an uneasy peace between Kalos and Galea, with some trade and exchange of historians and whatnot."

"Did you say that the Empress and the people in charge didn't actually join the battle?" Oak asked.

"Um, yes, while the King of Kalos personally engaged in battle to defend his country, the craven Empress and her retinue didn't leave Galea. The drawings never seem to show the Empress' face, but instead show her and various others holding gemstones which look remarkably like Gym Badges, which had powers that apparently worked only within Galea so they didn't dare leave and instead sent other soldiers to fight on their behalf."

Professor Oak took a minute to digest all of that. "That's very well and all for history, but what does it have anything to do with finding Ash?"

"I was just getting to it, but sorry, I think I may have rambled a bit too much, but the point I was trying to make is to first convince you that Galea, as a matter of fact, does exist. Back in Kalos almost everyone takes it as truth, but there are a few dissenters who say that it was Kanto and not Galea that waged war with Kalos and the names got mixed up, mainly because there's no way to explain how a continent vanished," Professor Sycamore said.

"That's the story I heard in history, I think, that Kanto went to war with Kalos," Professor Oak said. "So, what you're saying is that this place…. Galea, just up and vanished somehow?"

"Kind of," Professor Sycamore said, "you know how the Distortion World exists on a what might be called a different dimension? I'd say that something like that happened with Galea. It, well, it's still there, just we can't get to it. I can't work out all the details, though Bill is working on them, but it appears that small things- like water or air molecules- can get through whatever separates Galea from the rest of the world. Now, the freak storm into which I believe Ash vanished into isn't the first recorded one in history. There is an account of a pilot who had flown into a storm near exactly where Ash was. I have a copy of his mission report."

Professor Oak squinted and read the bulk of the report.

 _During a flight over the Sevii Islands, I suddenly ran into a rapidly-approaching group of storm clouds that seemed to have materialized almost instantly. My co-pilot, a Patrat, had been nervous all throughout the flight and began making incoherent noises as the clouds approached. All of my instruments including my compass suddenly failed working._

 _The storm however, seemingly abated as quickly as it had started. My Patrat had calmed down somewhat and so I turned the plane around to get a view of where I was._

 _While most of my instruments had begun working again, what they showed me made no sense at all. My compass had earlier shown that north was at three o' clock, while now it had shifted to ten o' clock position. Worse yet, I couldn't see a sight of any of the Sevii Islands, just water all around._

 _I tried my radio, but I was unable to contact my base for some reason. After a while, I noticed land, but it was unlike any I had seen in the region. There was a flock of Wingull- leading me to think that this was perhaps Hoenn, but Hoenn was several hundred miles away from where I had been. I also didn't recognize anything in the landscape below, but I saw what looked like to be some cities and forests, as well as plains._

 _I then decided that my best hope would be try and return to where I was to try and return from where I had came from. I still couldn't contact my base. As I returned, a very similar storm suddenly appeared, and there was a repeat of the same events._

 _I was then able to locate the Sevii Islands quickly and returned to my base, but to my astonishment, the other members remarked that I had been gone for over two weeks. Even though I was not carrying a watch, I could only guess that my journey should have taken, at the most, four hours in total._

 _I was later sent for psychiatric evaluation, but they couldn't find anything wrong with me._

"So, what you're saying is something like this happened to Ash?" Professor Oak asked.

Professor Sycamore nodded. "I would consider it a likely possibility."

Professor Oak rubbed his forehead. "I asked you for some concrete help with finding Ash Ketchum, and instead you come to me with what sounds like a fairy tale very much?"

Professor Sycamore was flabbergasted. "But Professor Oak- surely with all I've presented you it is hardly possible to deny-"

"I can't deny that _maybe_ you're right," Professor Oak said. "But the moment I do that, I am left with the question, what am I to do about it? If Ash has been transported somewhere else, what are we to do about it?"

Professor Sycamore quickly understood and said, "That's what I was about to get into. With the help of Clemont an a few of Team Flare's earlier scientists- don't worry, they're perfectly trustworthy-"

"That's also what you said about Lysandre," Professor Oak said. "And about the food at that Hoenese restaurant once. Look how both turned out."

"What I was saying-" Professor Sycamore said, pretending as if Professor Oak hadn't said anything, "is that we think we might find a way to get through."

"You can get a person through to Galea?" Professor Oak asked, incredulous. If this was true, it would definitely be the discovery of a century.

"No, no," Professor Sycamore said, wringing his hands. "The technology is in its very nascent stage, and at best within a week we _might_ be able to send and receive radio signals- you know, something basic like maybe a nursery rhyme. Then we would go further with sending a mechanical probe, and only after a lot of testing could we possibly consider sending a human."

Professor Oak said, "I've heard enough, and personally I want nothing to do with this."

"What? But why?"

"Aside from the fact that it seems like a crackpot idea?" Professor Oak asked. "Because it's obvious that you have no need for me in this plan."

"But we do!" Professor Sycamore said. "We'll need Pokemon and equipment for this-"

"You can borrow whatever you need," Professor Oak said. "Just let me be."

And that was that.

* * *

Selena's right hand man was a young professor of twenty-six years of age called Jenkins. The morning after she had had that nightmare yet again, he had delivered a report to Selena regarding their leads on who had hacked their systems.

Jenkins noticed that Selena looked… pretty much the same as always. His mission had not exactly ended up in a success, so he had been hoping for a slightly cheerier mood.

"We were able to locate where the Roserade had been sent from," Jenkins said. "It was from our own university here in Constantinople."

Ah yes, Constantinople, the gem of Selena's territory and- though the other Gym Leaders wouldn't admit it- of all of Galea as well. It was Galea's largest, most populous, and technologically most advanced city. Its roots went all the way back to when the first Empress of Galea had emerged and declared it her working capital.

But that wasn't what Selena was interested in. "Are you telling me that who sent the Roserade to the boy did it through _my own servers_ and through my very own city?"

Jenkins gulped. This was not going as well as he'd hoped. "Yes, milady. We found that a computer in the university belonging to a certain woman named Morgan Fey. Her card had been used to access the computer and it was from there that the Quick Ball with the Roserade had been physically placed before transferring it. We found Morgan Fey dead in her apartment."

Now, the thing was, though Jenkins was Selena's right hand man, he still probably didn't know more than thirteen percent of his mistress' secrets. And that was probably overestimating it. So, to his shock, he noticed that Selena didn't seem too surprised by what he had just said. He didn't voice this out loud, but it occurred to him that possibly Selena had already known, interrogated the girl, and killed her, though if this was true why she had sent him to go and find her was anyone's guess. He could tell though, that there was something about this that he didn't know.

"So, are you saying that whoever set this up killed her to silence her?" Selena asked.

"We believe that, yes," Jenkins hastily said, not wanting to voice his other theory out loud.

"And what does all of this tell you, Jenkins?" Selena asked.

Jenkins gulped before thinking about what he should go with, and just decided to tell the truth for now. "Well, from what I gather, whoever did this had access to our intelligence and was probably also listening to the conversation between Ash and uh, Mr. Jennings, was it? With not-inconsiderable skill, they used Morgan's computer to upload the Quick Ball. Based on this, we can only assume that they were a high-ranking member of our own organization, and this means we have a traitor in our midst."

Now, Selena was a good actress, but Jenkins had been with her for a long time. What did that expression mean? He was now certain that Selena was hiding something, but decided to plough on. "Though I cannot point out who exactly at this point, I would say I suspect Alan Lazar."

There was nothing fake about Selena's surprise at this. "What? Why?"

Jenkins regretted saying it as he didn't have much solid evidence, not to mention as Alan was Selena's left hand man and just a rank beneath him, it might seem more like bitter politicking than an actual accusation. "Milady, there has been a change in his manner lately. Not to mention, there have been an unusual traffic of exotic Flying Pokemon near his residence." While Selena invented and promoted use of telephones and the like, with one major reason being that she could listen in on nearly everything that happened in Galea, but of course old methods of passing on information like through Pidgey still existed…. but then again Selena knew how to intercept those as well. Most of the time, at least.

"I will hear no more," Selena said. "I have excellent reasons to trust Alan Lazar. He would not betray us for the pretender, for he, unlike you, knows what we have to lose. He would not have helped the pretender at all."

Jenkins bowed and said, "Forgive me, milady."

"Return to your duties," Selena said. She then turned to a model map of Galea and her thoughts moved to the pretender. It wasn't just her, she suspected that nearly all of Galea, regardless of whether they admitted it or not, was watching for Ash's next move with bated breath.

Up till now, Ash had been little more than a nuisance. But if he succeeded against Linnea, he would control half of Galea's Gym Badges, and he would now control Galea's break basket, and could rapidly change who was starving out whom. Selena knew that Constantinople was readily stocked for several years at least, and it didn't seem like Ash was the type to try and starve his enemies out, but it could never hurt to be too careful.

Even more than that though, if Ash won, it would mean that symbolically, he controlled half of Galea.

Selena doubted that even His Majesty could sit idle then.

 **A/N: And so, that ends the longest chapter I've ever written in this fanfic and that too without Ash in a single scene. Then again, chapters in the Pokemon fandom seem to be pretty long from whatever I've seen (they're also long in other ones too, but in some communities more than a thousand words per chapter is considered to be fine).**

 **Anyway, I'd just like to say that I had no idea how to explain Galea's disappearance to the rest of the world. I mean, in Pokemon, it is never explained how new regions just seem to randomly happen upon another region. And how many regions are there? Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, and now a new one under Sun and Moon. And that's just the main ones, there's also Ransei, the Orange Islands, Orre and I'm sure I've forgotten some. But anyway, the story I'm sticking with is that when the Gym Leaders broke away from the rest of the world, they also wiped out information about Galea from everyone's memories at that time, though they couldn't alter records so someone could always rediscover it.**

 **Also, a good portion of the war with Kalos is taken from Pokemon X and Y. I don't know how Team Flare played out in the anime but I'm assuming it was close to what happened in the games. If you don't know what happened, well, it is a rather really long story.  
**

 **Several of the city's names in this fanfic might sound familiar... because I'm terribly making up new names and mostly just borrow others. So if you think you've heard of Kingshead, Constantinople, or Aroughs... then you probably have.**

 **Thanks for the review Julie Togepi, and I noticed Jennings was changed to Jeggings and Hamnet to Hamlet... was that autocorrect? Because that's happened before.**

 **Thank you all for reading, and do please review if you liked!**

 **On a side note, Pokemon Go's been amazing. I've tried it, but I wished you could battle other players, but it seems fun anyhow.**


	29. VS Linnea II

**A/N: Thanks guys for all the reviews, favorites, and follows!**

 **Ralmon, you've made some good points, but I'm not sure you read beyond chapter 1 so I'm not commenting a long answer to your review.**

 **Julie Togepi, thanks, and that's not the last surprise that you'll be getting from Selena.**

 **Mew29240, the idea for Kalos was actually a very recent one. I had to have people outside find it, so water currents seemed to be the best way to do so. That's true about Linnea, but also about most of the other Gym Leaders. As for time, I'll just say that time is flexible between Galea and the rest of the world, sometimes moving slower in one and then slower in the other... I'll comment on it later. As for Team Flare, whoops, because I've been way off then but it shouldn't make a difference.**

 **Also, I will let you know that Alan Lazar will become important later on, but nothing more than that.**

The meeting between Ash, Duke Hamnet, and Mr. Jennings ended without reaching any definitive conclusion.

While Ash was still against the idea of conducting what could be a long and protracted siege against some people who really had nothing to do with Linnea, he couldn't deny that they needed the grain, and they would probably need it fast. Not to mention, with his training regime, he wasn't that confident of his Pokemon yet. Roserade was still his strongest, but in those terms it looked like Pikachu was set to surpass her quite soon.

His Pokemon were playing/training near a small tree and stopped when he approached to swarm around him.

"Hey there guys!" Ash said. If there was one thing that hadn't changed in Galea, it was that being with his Pokemon usually made all his worries dissipate.

After five minutes during which Ash blabbed about what had happened and the quagmire he had found himself in, Pikachu looked at him understandingly.

It occurred to Ash then just how much he wasn't up to this whole task. He wasn't a master strategist, or organizer, or, truth be told, that much good of a Trainer either.

And of course, he couldn't help but think what his friends and family would think. Would they approve of the plan to lay siege to Aroughs, and potentially cost people and Pokemon their lives?

Honestly, he had never had a real discussion with anyone about what was right or wrong. No, he just somehow always knew what was right and did it. But Galea had put ideals he had held before in question…

His thoughts were interrupted as something in the air moved towards them. His head whipped around reflexively to see it was Crobat, but he relaxed when he saw that Celera was getting off of it. She must have been back from… well, wherever she had gone off to.

"Nice to see you again, Ash," she said. Unlike most everyone else, Celera had dropped the whole 'Milord' or 'Majesty' phrases to refer to Ash and just called him by name at his own insistence. Thing is, while it was kind of cool for a while, it did get repetitive quick, not to mention it just didn't feel right.

Maybe it was because her elder sister was an Elite Four member that Celera didn't seem completely awed and overwhelmed by Ash.

"Nice to see you too," Ash said. "Where were you?"

"I had gone to find this," Celera said and tossed a very old book towards Ash. It was handwritten and seemed to be a journal of some sort.

"That's Sheldon's diary," Celera said.

Ash thought the name sounded familiar, but it took him a moment to remember that he was supposed to be Arthur's- one of the Elite Four's- apprentice. Ash flipped through it again and tried reading it. The handwriting was horrendous and nearly illegible in certain areas, not to mention it seemed that Sheldon had spilled what looked like coffee over some of the pages.

"I can't read most of it," Ash said, trying to make sense of it.

"I couldn't either, but Sheldon said he wrote like that on purpose so no one besides him could read his handwriting. But, I did sort of learn to read it. Sheldon had chosen to fight Linnea like I had decided to fight Freyja, but he lost like I did and fled, only that Linnea managed to seriously wound him. I managed to get him across the border to Freyja's domain, but then we were harassed by her followers who were chasing us, and we lost a lot of stuff on the way, including that journal. I didn't want to go looking for it afterwards because it was lost on the way towards Alamut and I thought I might be caught, but I went to look for it now," Celera said. "I thought it might help you, since Sheldon did fight Linnea and wrote a bit about his battle. And there are some hand-drawn maps of her realm and accounts of passageways and such."

"Oh," Ash said, surprised. "That's great." He didn't say it with much enthusiasm though.

"What's bothering you?" Celera asked.

Someone besides Ash might have been more discreet about blabbing their problems to someone they didn't know that well, but then, Ash was Ash and had never really felt the need to not say what he wanted too.

So, Ash told Celera bout the planned siege on Aroughs, and how he felt about it.

"Thing is though, that it just _feels_ wrong," Ash said. "I mean, it is one thing to attack the Gym Leaders, we have to and they haven't been good rulers, but this is just a normal city. And we can't steal their grain…"

Ash expected Celera to react like Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet. It was easy to spot that both of them thought that Ash's misgivings were both meaningless and childish, and would have to be ignored for the common good, except of course they didn't dare outright say that to Ash's face.

Celera didn't say it to Ash's face either, but that wasn't because she was scared to talk, but rather because she had a different opinion. "Well, look, child, I'm not going to pretend to have the magic solution to all of your problems…. But I have to kind of agree with you."

"Really?" Ash asked, surprised.

"Sure," Celera said. "The Gym Leaders throughout history have been nasty, and I mean really nasty people. Even my elder sister, who I admired, was forced to do things I'm sure she never wanted to do."

That brought out a question from Ash. "Wait- didn't you say once that the first Elite Four Champion left? What do you mean by 'left?' I think Mr. Jennings mentioned it once but I wasn't listening-" Pikachu rolled his eyes at this point "-and I remember him saying that there was period of peace among the Gym Leaders when she came to power."

"Oh, now _that's_ a long story," Celera said while sitting down in the grass next to Ash. She released her other Pokemon to move around as they pleased. "And I mean really long, with lots of regional variations and different editions depending on who you want to believe. But, in the gist of it, the Gym Badges have a long history- longer than anyone can remember. No one's sure where they came from, but they were always there and there was always fighting over them. Until one day, many thousands of years ago, a woman unified all eight territories and became the first and only Elite Four Champion Galea has ever had. She crowned herself Empress, and it is said that when she took all eight Gym Badges into a special cave located in the Eight Gym Leader's domain, something happened and something was revealed to her. She went on to distribute the Gym Badges to warlords she thought were worthy, and forbade warfare among them except for the Gym Leaders challenging each other- so they couldn't form armies, it would simply be one-on-one. The Empress, since she was the first person to become one of the Elite Four, wasn't bound by their usual oaths and rules and freely interfered in the day-to-day workings of Galea. But, as time went on and she realized that she had somehow become immortal, she though that the entire world could benefit from a ruler who would never die and maintain law and order throughout. So, she raised a huge army and ordered them to attack a neighboring region called Kalos."

That got Ash's attention. "Wait, you mean Kalos? The Kalos, the same one where I was?"

Celera raised an eyebrow. "I'm assuming yes… but I don't really know what you're talking about since I don't know what you call Kalos."

Ash rather hurriedly gave her an account of what Kalos was like, with recent memories of his trip there and Selena bringing a wave of nostalgia over him. It had all happened so recently… and yet seemed so distant and far away in this new land.

"Well, I don't know exactly if they're the same," Celera said. "But I think remember reading something about Kalos' geography, and what you describe sort of seems to fit the picture. Plus, if they're both called Kalos they should probably be the same place?"

"I guess," Ash said. "So, what happened? With the Empress' army, I mean."

"Oh? The Empress didn't want to leave Galea herself for some reason. Some speculated it was because the Gym Badge's powers are confined to their own regions, and perhaps she would lose her abilities if she left Galea? Anyway, the army was defeated by the king of Kalos. The Empress, enraged, raised another massive army some years later, but that was mostly destroyed in a typhoon and few of its members reached Kalos," Celera said. "Truth be told, I think deep down, she just wanted to rule the whole world. I think while she claimed to love peace, and maybe she had unified Galea partly for peace, she was actually also very ambitious and becoming Empress meant there was no where else to go but outside Galea, and that talk of unifying the world for its own good was just talk. But, those two failures had sent millions to their deaths, and the age of peace she had brought with her reign was soured by these two wars. The Empress attempted an attack on Kanto- yes, I'm guessing it is the same place as your home region- but the population had been depleted badly by two wars and she couldn't find enough soldiers. After that, she grew secluded and stopped really reigning over Kalos in anything but name, and once again, the wars between regions cropped again. They were united by some people throughout history, and from them the Elite Four emerged. As such, Galea has usually gone through a cyclical period- there is constant war, then someone comes up and unites all the regions, becoming one of the Elite Four, there's peace for some time, and then that someone goes into seclusion into whatever 'project' the Elite Four were focused on and there is war yet again. I guess in a way the current Gym Leader's reign is a deviation from all that, with sustained inter-domain peace, albeit a sour one riddled with hundreds of stories of abuse of power and oppression."

Ash blinked. That was a whole lot to take in. "Huh- I never really heard about Galea though back in Kalos." Then again, Ash didn't really pay much attention to history or tourist sights during his adventures, so it was possible that he'd missed something.

"After a few hundred years though, the Elite Four Champion, the Empress, simply left," Celera said. "People give a large number of reasons why she left, but I think that she was simply _bored_. I can sort of see it- there's no where to go once you're at the top, and her attempt to unite the whole world didn't work out so well. So, the story goes that she simply up and left, and from that day onward the Elite Four were never able to choose another Champion from among themselves."

"Mr. Jennings said that there were rumors that another Champion was there," Ash said.

"Oh yes," Celera said. "I've talked to some more people- it is _so_ much easier to socialize when you're not a hunted criminal." She laughed. "But, yes, I've also heard the rumors, but like I've told you before, I can't see it happening."

Ash suddenly jolted up as if he had been shocked. "Yeah, I remember you saying that for someone to have challenged the Elite Four, he would have to battle and defeat all the Gym Leaders, but no one had done that or you'd have known. But, I think Freyja was about to mention that there was another way to challenge the Elite Four- but she had sworn not to tell anyone and bit her tongue before she could."

"That's news to me," Celera said. "I certainly have never heard of something like that… but I suppose it could be true?"

"I don't see why the Eighth Gym Leader would make them swear to hide it unless it was important somehow," Ash said. "And when you think about it, the whole thing about the Elite Four is shrouded in mystery- especially if you think it all happened just after a new Elite Four Champion was crowned."

"Yes, but what could it all mean? If there was a new Elite Four Champion, what does that have to do with everything that happened? And if there was a new Champion, why didn't they fight with the Elite Four against the Gym Leaders, and just where is the New Champion now? _If_ by chance there was a new one, and I think that that is a very, very, long shot, we've got to ask those questions too" Celera said. "Anyhow, no one knows what happened to the Empress. Some say that she ascended to some higher plane of existence, others say that she got tired of life, sailed to a remote land, and died as she no longer had the support of her powers away from Galea, though that theory only works if you assume that the Gym Badges don't work outside Galea- something no one's ever tried so no one knows. Others say that she's still out there somewhere, meditating on things other people simply can't understand."

"If she was out there, she'd probably have done something to save Galea from the Gym Leaders, right though?" Ash said.

"Probably," Celera said. "Unless she no longer cared so much she couldn't bother. So anyway, that's her story out of the way."

"Yeah, sorry we got off topic," Ash said. "I mean, we were talking about what to do about Aroughs and we suddenly got lost."

Celera nodded. "I'd just like to say a few things about that first. First of all, don't take this the wrong way kid, but I don't think you've really realized how bad the food shortages are. _Your_ meals haven't stopped, but I've been around the countryside, and even the people here are feeling the pinch and the people here can herd and forage, so I'm guessing the people in your other territories are feeling even worse."

Ash looked like he'd been shocked again. "What? But how come anyone hasn't told-"

"Now, now, hold your Rapidash," Celera said. "It isn't really _that_ bad with emancipated children wandering the streets and I don't think anyone has died of hunger yet, though it might get there soon, so I'm just saying, we need grain. The others probably didn't want to distract you too much with details and so they didn't tell you, or might have assumed that it wasn't serious enough to mention. And remember, though stealing is deplorable, what they're doing to us- starving us out, is worse in my opinion."

"So you're saying I should go through with the siege?" Ash asked.

"I'm not saying you should, but if you don't want Trainers to start eating their own Pokemon- or worse, each other, then you have to do _something_ very soon. And unless you think you're powerful enough to go and knock out Linnea within a couple of days on your own, that's not going to happen, right?" Celera asked.

"Right," Ash said.

"On that topic though, I tried reading some of Sheldon's notes and I do have some information," Celera said. " Sheldon only fought five out of eight of Linnea's Pokemon, and they were a Lilligant, a Kricketune, a Golduck, an Elektross, and a Flareon. He said that most of her Gym Trainers weren't too tough, except for her tutor, Li-han. Li-han managed to take out two of Sheldon's Pokemon, and Sheldon kept muttering along the way when I was helping him about how he could've won if it wasn't for him."

"Okay," Ash said. That gave him some idea of what Linnea could do.

"But then again, I get where you're coming from," Celera said. "You don't want to hurt people- but I'm sure you could find a way so that you could minimize damages. And remember, no matter what you do, with the destruction and terror that the Gym Leaders have caused, you could never be worse than them unless you _really_ went off the deep end. But you don't need to use them as a metric though- look, I've never really been an ends justify the means kind of gal, but there's no backing out now, Ash, and we have to do what we have to do in order to overthrow the Gym Leaders."

"The only thing is, I've never really had these problems before," Ash said. "Not before I came here. Here… everything's different- everything's just so much more, well, cruel."

Celera's face fell. "You don't know a lot about us Galeans if you think that we enjoy torture and murder, but of course, you've mainly only known the Gym Leaders, so who can blame you?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like an insult," Ash said. "It's just that I've always been sure that what I'm doing is the right thing. And Mom, and Professor Oak, and Brock, and Misty, and even Gary- I mean, we were all good people. But…. now I would really just kind of hope that the adults would take over, but then I remember that I'm somehow in charge."

"Power is never without price," Celera said, her eyes tinged with sadness.

Someone besides Ash might have asked Celera what was wrong based on her expression, but of course, Ash was Ash and carried on as he had most of his life: oblivious to most things around him.

Ash took one good look at his Pikachu, and he had made his choice. He got up. "I'm going to talk to Duke Hamlet. I have to talk about the siege."

"Just remember one thing," Celera shouted to him. "Remember what the Gym Leaders have done! And remember that no one has ever conquered Galea by being all touchy-feely and soft!"

Ash found Duke Hamnet in his office, who immediately jumped back guiltily on seeing Ash. Reason being was that he was using the telephone to play a game of chess with Mr. Jennings to see who was better, and the thing was that he was afraid that Ash might chew him out for using such a high-end service like a telephone for playing board games.

His fears proved to be unfounded however, as Ash was actually glad that Mr. Jennings was there as well so he could skip on having to inform both of them separately.

"So, I've decided that we should go through with the siege," Ash said. "But first of all, I've heard from Cel- uh, I mean, other people that the food shortages are getting serious. Why didn't anyone tell me?"

Duke Hamnet seemed to be genuinely wondering what it was that Ash was talking about. "Well, there's nothing seriously wrong, Sir. There's been no incidences of grain riots or anything worse happening."

Ash realized that Celera's definition of 'serious' and what constituted as a serious crisis for Duke Hamnet and Mr. Jennings didn't match.

"Well, whatever," Ash said, leaving the topic. "But, if we're going to get through with the siege, I have some conditions. First of all, if we're going for grain, we're only going to take what used to belong to Linnea's government and we're not going to be raiding private stores. Also, we're going to keep a small reserve for Aroughs in case things get bad."

"Well, of course, Sir," Duke Hamnet said. "The ultimate goal, is, of course, to take Linnea's territory, and we will have to integrate those people into our own at one point in the future."

"No quartering of our soldiers in their homes, and we won't take anything that we don't immediately need. Also, we won't be actually attacking the city," Ash said. "At least the civilians. We'll threaten them and all, but I don't want any actual missiles or attacks made."

Mr. Jennings stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Are you saying that you don't want a _single_ casualty? While we can try, and I do support being non-aggressive, that seems to be a bit extreme."

Ash shook his head. "Those are my conditions."

"In that case, we should begin," Duke Hamnet said. "I do believe that Aroughs would simply choose to surrender, but we should probably at least make it seem like we could pose a threat if we wanted too. There are some siege machines left over from what Thomdolt was making, they're mostly rejects that he couldn't sell to Selena but I'm assuming that they still look like they could work. Then, we'll need people, and tents, and other supplies…"

"Not to mention a quick way to get grain back," Mr. Jennings said. "By boat would be preferred, but there are no rivers connecting our realm with Linnea's, at least, none that pass near Aroughs so we'll have to do the best we can."

Ash nodded, and then returned to his part in the whole scheme: training his Pokemon.

Because all the grain in the world wouldn't matter if he lost to her in a Gym Battle.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	30. VS Linnea III

Conscription of soldiers has always been a part and parcel of ancient life. In times of warfare, the state could very legally expect to call upon every man available to defend the country

Galea was no stranger to this tradition. While the Gym Leaders were notorious for conscripting large masses of peasants to either raid other territories or defend their own, it was also common for famines to follow as there were too few people to work the fields following such wars.

Take for instance, the time when the Empress of Galea had deemed it necessary to attack Kalos. She forcibly drafted two hundred and fifty thousand in addition to volunteers. All of them were defeated soundly by the king of Kalos. Again another army which had two hundred thousand conscripts was formed some decades later, only to be defeated by a more formidable foe- Mother Nature herself in the form of a freak typhoon. Less than three percent survived.

Such things however, had grown out of place with the signing of the Accord by the eight Gym Leaders with no need for such kinds of war.

It was assumed though, among the families of Galea, that with the coming of this foreigner named Ash to their country, that a mass conscription would soon rear its head for one reason or the other.

Their fears, for this time though, proved unfounded. While it was true that Ash needed soldiers to lay siege to Aroughs, it was also true that they didn't need that much, and also, surprisingly, they got a large group of volunteers.

Now, why people wanted to join them was a sort of mystery with various answers.

For one, the whole thing was presented, and was widely assumed to be rather safe as they would try to avoid fighting, and so some of the more adventurous people of Galea might have opted as an opportunity to see some of the rest of the world.

There may have also been those who had simply been moved by Ash's recent actions and thought that it was their own moral duty to help in the fight to overthrow the accursed Gym Leaders. (Sadly, to Ash's dismay, these people were very few. It turned out that, despite what Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet seemed to tell him, a large portion of the people of Galea, though by far no big fans of the Gym Leaders, seemed to prefer to be left alone rather than get tangled in another war.)

Then of course, there were those whose blood ran hot with adrenaline who may have wanted to be part of some sort of conflict, of any kind, regardless of who they were up against.

And of course, considering the fact that Duke Hamnet had said that the grain that they got would go preferentially to the soldier's own families as part of an incentive to get people to join would have prompted a large amount of people to volunteer. (He had assumed, wrongly, that it would be difficult to find a large number of volunteers.)

Then again, overall, they were only recruiting about eight hundred people, and so with so small a number, it wasn't a huge miracle that they got more than enough people, about five thousand, to come and volunteer for the task.

This did however increase Mr. Jenning's burden in trying to organize the whole thing. While both of Ash's chief administrators, Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet were usually very busy anyway, both were now working nearly non-stop as the preparations for the siege went underway. Ash tried taking off time from training as he thought he should pitch in somehow only to be greeted with huge stacks of documents detailing things which were so minor and yet so vital as how much rope they would need, or how many screws needed to be ordered.

Ash left the governing to those two after that. However, he did decide that one area that he could help was in deciding who to take along.

Gulliver pitched in too.

"So, the first thing that we should do is get people who are experienced with Pokemon," Ash said. "They should be preferred, and of course, preferably people again who have used them to battle."

"Right," Gulliver said. "But besides that, we'll also need people to run the siege machines, a few doctors, some blokes to run the ships if we get 'em…"

And so, they divided the volunteers into two groups: one in which there were those with special skills like carpenters or cooks, and the others whose main skill was battling.

Gulliver mainly went around to the first group, asking people what experience they had and preparing a list.

Ash on the other hand, went to the second, much larger group to try and gauge which one of them were really skilled enough to take along.

As he started, Ash couldn't help but laugh at the irony. He, Ash Ketchum, a Trainer who relied more on instinct instead of any kind of experience or intelligence, was going around testing other Trainers on their ability. He could think of several people back home who would've gotten a good giggle at hearing about that.

All of the people whom Ash met immediately began kneeling and kowtowing to him the moment they saw him. Ash found that he couldn't really stop them after a few attempts of trying and so tried not to get too used to it.

At that point, Ash realized that this was one of the first times that he was going to meet up with a large number of his well, they were technically his subjects but he didn't really think of him as a king or anything, and then realized that this meant that however he interacted with them would probably result in stories that would be taken by them to their homes and to the other people of his realm.

Since most families of Galea didn't have things like radios or televisions, that meant that this was probably the best way to get word out to the rest of his people.

And, thanks to propaganda, Ash mainly assumed that most people thought he was some sort of seven-foot tall barbarian wearing Pokemon skins who enjoyed collecting people's heads, this was a good chance to get some nice publicity out.

And so, Ash tried to be as nice as possible, going out of his way to complement the people he met, to shake their hands, and to ask them their names and such. There were far too many for him to remember, but he could tell that even such small actions seemed to have a profound effect on them.

It also allowed him to glean a lot of information about the normal people of Galea. Ash had spent most of his time training, or with people like Mr. Jennings, Duke Hamnet, or Celera, none of whom really represented the majority of Galea, except for maybe Gulliver who really didn't talk much about his earlier life. But, this gave him an insight into the lives of lots of people.

The majority of the volunteers that Ash met had never battled and were mainly Breeders like Brock, or had done things like milk Milktanks or breed Combees. Ash was about to write all of them off when he realized that the campaign would be using a lot of Pokemon not just to fight, but also to move around, so having some of them around would also be quite fine.

As for those who were currently or had been Trainers, none of them were particularly powerful. Ash had to really try to stop from sounding condescending when he examined all of them.

Then again, it all did make sense. If the place were littered with powerful Trainers, the Gym Leaders would have used them as Gym Trainers.

By the evening, Gulliver and Ash had managed to short list about a thousand people. Duke Hamnet and Mr. Jennings would make their final selections.

Both of them were talking about latrine ditches when Ash gave in his report, which didn't so much as garner a chuckle from Ash as make him realize that that many people, did, as a matter of fact, have to go somewhere.

Within two weeks their preparations were complete. The people for the trip had been chosen, the rest had gone home, and their supplies _seemed_ to be ready but every now and then Duke Hamnet or Mr. Jennings would suddenly jump up and realize that they had forgotten something like shovels for the campaign.

And of course, with everything that they needed, they needed people to make the stuff. As such, artisans all over Ash's realm were suddenly busy and merchants had flocked to the site of their preparations, which was now the most crowded and populous place within Freyja's territory. There were also those who had come for no reason other than to watch things. Whenever anyone would get too close to the site of where military work was being conducted, they would be shooed away, first by the Pokemon, then by the workmen, and then finally by Duke Hamnet himself.

With so many people gathered in one area, there were also entertainers there now. Ash could see jugglers, conjurers, and even clowns (although they terrified him personally) with stalls being set up.

All in all, the whole mood was very festive, though marked with an air of utmost agency. Ash thought he might have even enjoyed it a lot if it wasn't for the fact that this was all being done so that they could go to war.

The overarching plan was clear: Mr. Jennings would remain behind to oversee things, while Ash would nominally be the head of the expedition. Duke Hamnet would be leaving in order to do most of the work for the campaign.

Celera said that she would be sitting everything out. It turned out that being on the run for so many years had affected her health so she was going to visit a doctor and try to get some much-needed rest. Ash agreed and even set aside some funds for building Sheldon some sort of memorial.

What did make him confused though was that Gulliver of all people had decided to stay back in Duke Hamnet's place. That was very odd as Gulliver had looked happier than a Hoppip at the chance of going along with Ash. Which was why he visited him the day before their departure.

Gulliver was busy looking over some forms- which was a problem, since as far as Ash could tell, Gulliver couldn't really read. Sure, he could make out words fine but his job under Marley didn't involve much reading and so getting through anything longer than a few paragraphs was a struggle for him.

Note exactly the kind of skills you wanted in someone who was staying behind to take an administrative task, but Gulliver at least seemed to be trying.

"What're are you reading?" Ash asked.

"Oh, uh, I think it's got somethin' to do with baggage trains," Gulliver said.

"Okay, but I heard that you weren't going out with us on the campaign," Ash said. "And that you're gonna stay here in Hamnet's place. Why though? I mean, I thought that you were really excited to go."

"Yeah," Gulliver said. "I was rarin' to go, but thing is, I reckoned we never really were all that useful, my gang and me, and someone does need to stay behind to handle what Duke Hamnet does."

"Not to be very rude- but management and administration really doesn't seem something you'd be really interested in," Ash said.

"Yeah- well, that's why I thought I should get started as soon as possible," Gulliver said with a smile that Ash could tell was clearly fake.

"Is something wrong?" Ash asked.

"Well- just that mainly Mr. Jennings had a talk with me and said how I should be more concerned with bureaucratic stuff instead of running around fightin', and I guess I can't really blame him. I mean, my team and me didn't help squat against Thomdolt and Freyja, so…" he trailed off.

"But that's no reason to stop trying!" Ash said. "And leave what Mr. Jennings says! C'mon, I do want you to be fighting with us when we go to Aroughs- you're one of the few real friends I have in this place-" Gulliver smiled, "-and as for managing stuff, I don't think we need to do very much. Most of the work was related to the siege and anyway Duke Hamnet'll be handling that."

"So, you're saying I should go?"

"I'm saying I want you to go."

Gulliver smiled. "Thanks Ash! I won't let ya down!"

* * *

When all was said and done, and every last Pokemon fed for the journey, every last tent and supply bag loaded on the baggage trains consisting of a variety of Pokemon known for bearing large weights like Numel, and the people embarking for the siege giving a last, teary farewell to their friends and families who had come to see them off, they set off for the border with Linnea's territory.

Usually the borders between territories were well-marked with a river or some other change, and in this specific part it was a change in the soil. While the soil was dry and sparse with vegetation on what was now Ash's side, it abruptly changed into dark, loamy soil, and with large grass that stretched over three feet high in a straight line that extended on both sides for miles. Ash scratched his head, much like with the soil change between Freyja's and Thomdolt's domains, it seemed far too prominent and the lines drawn far too straight, as if the whole thing was man-made. But there were certainly no huge armies of workers near the border separating the soil and ensuring the grasses were different on both sides… so that could only mean that it was somehow natural.

Ash still didn't really understand how the eight territories of Galea had developed, and from the way the Badges had reacted when Ash took them out of where he had gotten them, it made it seem like the eight territories somehow hated each other or something. Was it possible that each of them was actually just a huge, living organism, and the Badges just a concentration of their power?

Ash was snapped out of these thoughts as he noticed the barrier that Linnea had erected to keep others out of her domain. Thomdolt had tried something similar, and they had circumvented that by using an alternate route through the Gliscor's Nest.

However, that was back when Ash only had one Badge. He now wielded _three_ of them directly, and made a hole about fifty feet wide in the barrier about as easily as he would have ripped through a paper bag with their combined power.

"I highly doubted that Lady Linnea would have expected something like that to keep us out for long," Duke Hamnet said. "Hopefully though, she wouldn't have posted too many scouts near the border and word hasn't reached her yet about our plans. We should be quick though, Selena knows what we're doing if she was listening in on us which I do not doubt for a second and she will have informed Linnea. The citizens of Aroughs may have just burned their stock of grain and moved on for all we know."

Ash nodded. "We'll move quickly then."

 **A/N: Thanks for reading everyone. Julie Togepi, thanks for your review, and I hope the exposition wasn't too heavy in this chapter. Do please review if you liked!**


	31. VS Linnea IV

**A/N: Thanks Julie Togepie for that review!**

 **Ralmon, I don't know if you've read up till here, but I have to admit that you have some valid points. I've been dumping convoluted points and rules for no reason (at least not explained now), and two chief complains about this story have been that I seem to be going to fast (I apologize if it felt so, I rather felt like anything extra would be 'filler' and left it), and that the chapters are too short. And I did focus a lot on the battles since I assumed they would be a main point, but perhaps I left out other things.**

 **I don't know if I can go back and change the other things right now, but I will try to change things in these new chapters and going on.**

The breeze drifted the lazily clouds gently over Ash's army.

Then again, as it only had eight hundred people, calling it an army was a bit of a stretch.

Heck, eight hundred people are hardly enough to qualify as being your average middle school, for that matter. 'Siege party' seemed to describe it better.

Still, it was the largest group that Ash had ever travelled with, and he liked to think of it like his old journeys, except far bigger.

They had encountered no people or any further resistance than that barrier that Linnea had set up. The land was lush with plant life and the sweet smell of flowers permeated the air, while Pokemon like huge hordes of Bellossom could be seen dancing.

All of this coupled with the lovely weather had placed most of the army in a good mood.

That was simply another way of saying that everyone in the army was in a good mood… except for Duke Hamnet.

"Hurry up, you laggards! We have to get their fast! AND STOP SMILING! WE'RE HERE TO LAY SIEGE TO A CITY, WE'RE NOT ON SOME BLOODY PICNIC!" he would shout through sleep-deprived eyes at random people.

After two hours, Ash thought that they should rest, and perhaps send some scouting parties ahead to check what lay before them. He released his Fearow which took to the sky and flew away to gauge the lay of the land.

Ash sat down as the siege party assembled a makeshift camp. Gulliver and he had been walking together and chatting aimlessly up till now, but Duke Hamnet decided to join them.

"I think you should take a short nap," Ash said. "You _really_ look like you could use one."

"Indeed," Duke Hamnet said. He was clearly too tired to resist. "But I would like to share my opinions on how we've been going lately, and all I can fathom is that this has been far too easy. We have run into no enemy scouts or patrols, and I haven't seen anything resembling a smoke signal… this all seems just too simple to be true. Linnea has to know that we're coming. Unless, wait- what if Linnea _wants_ us to take Aroughs- no, that can't be right."

He spent the next ten minutes thinking up o scenarios before he finally dozed off.

"Well, glad that's over," Gulliver whispered.

"Eh, he's just doing his job," Ash said.

Lunch was prepared and of course, chatter among the troops began as they started exchanging stories and playing games.

Ash and Gulliver were engaged in a game of chess (it usually ended up with both of them losing all their pieces since none of them was good at it) when a small lanky boy rushed over to them, saluted and said, "Scout reporting for duty sirs!"

Duke Hamnet's bloodshot eyes snapped open. "What happened? Who's there?" he groggily muttered.

"Scout report, sirs," the boy said. "I was movin' ahead 'bout when I heard some chattering, and I saw a camp of people sitting around and lounging. I placed myself close to the brush and snuck up on 'em and saw they were 'bout seven or so."

"Where are they?" Hamnet demanded.

"'Bout fifteen minutes from here, if you'll run," the scout answered.

"Good," Duke Hamnet said. "We need a way to deal with these scouts… we can't have them signaling the city about our approach." He turned to Ash. "Sir, what we should do is knock most of them unconscious and keep a few for questioning on the condition of Aroughs and what Linnea has planned for us."

Duke Hament was afraid that Ash might protest to this, but Ash nodded. "Sure. We should leave quickly with a small party and take them out before the rest of the army arrives."

They left fifteen minutes later with a party of sixteen. They left most of their stuff behind and let the scouts guide them towards where the enemy was camped.

As the sound of voices drifted towards them, they crouched down into the bush and crawled. Ash then peered his head slightly to get a glimpse of their opponents.

They were wearing a uniform that was composed of light green trousers and shirts with three white stripes across the shoulder. Four of them were involved in a sort of card game along with two spectators. One of them had his head down and was examining something in his lap, while the voice of one could be heard from inside a pitched tent.

All of them seemed to be relaxed and enjoying the weather, which surprised both Duke Hamnet and Ash. Were they not expecting them? Or where they simply inexperienced? But if they were inexperienced, why would they be trusted with guarding the border?

"This doesn't feel right," Ash said.

"I share your concern," Duke Hamnet said. "But we have to do _something_ , don't we?"

Ash nodded.

But it wasn't as if either one of them had to do so much as raise a finger. Or, in Duke Hamnet's case, more than two as he gave the signal.

Two Vileplume jumped out of the bushes and released a heavy dose of Sleep Powder towards the crowd. Most of them zonked off before they had the slightest clue what had hit them. One of them emerged from the tent only to fall asleep before anything else could happen.

All but one of them fell to the Sleep Powder, but just then the wind started and the cloud began to move towards where Duke Hamnet and Ash were.

They quickly got up and moved out of range, but the one sole enemy scout who had been looking at something and had been spared the effect of the Sleep Powder got up right then, saw both of them and his sleeping companions, and ran off.

"After him!" Duke Hamnet said.

The Vileplum were withdrawn and Duke Hamnet used his Altaria to blow the Sleep Powder away.

"He's getting away!" Ash said as he chased after the scout.

Ash had to hand one thing to the scout: that he was _fast_ and Ash found himself sweaty and panting. Others had joined in on the chase, but he was barely able to keep up the guy in sight!

Ash then nearly face-palmed for making another obvious mistake as was his habit. He released his Arcanine and rode it, something he should have done from the very beginning.

The guy seemed to realize quickly that he was done for, so he desperately changed directions and sat down, scribbled something on a piece of paper and tied it to a Pidgey that he released and then sent out before Ash converged on him.

"No! We can't let that message reach them!" Duke Hamnet said, barely catching up to them.

The Pidgey took flight towards the open sky. It had barely gone fifty feet when a huge shadow swooped down on it and knocked it out before catching it on its back and landing.

"Good job, Fearow," Ash said. He untied the message and saw that there was only one work written on it: HAMNET.

The guy seemed to realize that all of his options were gone and put his hands up. He glared at Hamnet and said, "Traitor."

"Bah!" Duke Hamnet spat.

Ash took a closer look at the kid and noticed that he couldn't have been much older than him. He also seemed to be better dressed than the other scouts.

"So, do tell us what you're doing here," Duke Hamnet said.

"I don't need to talk to you," the guy said. "Not to someone who sold out his rightful lady and decided to side with a barbarian."

Duke Hamnet glanced at Ash, but Ash wasn't angry about the comment, rather he was curious. "What's your name?"

The guy snapped his neck to look at Ash and size him up, who was on top of an Arcanine and wearing what must have seemed like very weird clothes. Ash had kept his Badges hidden from view inside of his coat once they had crossed the border, thinking it might have helped if they ran into an enemy for them not to know who they had found.

"Hasbudral," the guy said in a low voice. "What's it to you?"

"Well, Habsbu- uh, Hasburd, uh, well, we just wanted to know why you and your friends were hanging out and having a party instead of spreading out and trying to find our army," Ash said.

"Army?" the guy asked, confused. "What army?"

The sounds of the rest of the siege party began to echo through the woods, so loudly that Hasbudral must have noticed them.

"Yes, an army," Duke Hamnet said. "You know, for when we plan to lay siege to Aroughs as Linnea must have known that we planned."

Hasbudral became baffled at this. "An army? You're going to lay siege to Aroughs?"

Duke Hamnet and Ash glanced at each other.

"How do you not know that?" Ash asked. "I mean, Selena must have heard about it in through our communications channels, and Linnea must have spies in our territory."

Duke Hamnet frowned. "Yes, that is true, but they would have been unable to cross that barrier anyway." He then glared at Hasbudral. "Don't try to fool us, Linnea must be either incompetent or a complete idiot if she hadn't set out a web of scouts to signal towards Aroughs when we arrived."

"I don't know," Hasbudral said. "We were just given word back in Aroughs that they were to burn the crops if you came, and that there was a barrier across the border so we didn't have to worry too much about normal raids, and that the barbarian king Ash would probably come in a small group."

'That's how we've been moving against Thomdolt and Freyja," Ash muttered. He then turned to Duke Hamnet. "What do you make of it?"

"It looks like he's telling the truth," Duke Hamnet said. "But the truth makes no sense and we should probably ask the other prisoners."

Hasbudral was tied up, but Ash ordered him to be treated fairly along with the rest of the prisoners. Duke Hamnet began barking orders for five minutes before he began swaying and collapsed.

"Looks like we're in charge then," Gulliver said. Duke Hamnet was carried away on a stretcher and left to snooze.

Ash and Gulliver then tried their best to organize things. They ran into more scout camps along the way, which they took in a similar manner.

There weren't many forests or trees in Linnea's domain, which made dust storms and tornadoes quite common in some places, but there was a relatively large group of trees near where they decided to camp for the night so that they would have some cover. It was far enough from the city of Aroughs so that they wouldn't be spotted.

The nighttime campfires were dotted with excited people swapping stories about the day's events. Duke Hamnet still hadn't woken up and they had decided not to try and rouse him until it was morning.

* * *

The city of Aroughs was one of the crown jewels of the Fourth Gym Leader's territories. In its entire history, it had been burnt to the ground a total of eleven times and so boasted considerable defenses.

The city itself was nestled near a river which would serve as a small port and supply water for a part of the city. It boasted of a stone wall fifty feet high on all sides. Its location, surrounded by plains on all sides meant that sneaking up on it wasn't a possibility.

The interior of the city was similarly designed with networks and street corners where soldiers could be stationed, and it had a central citadel with its own sixty feet high wall and which didn't have a bastion out of place.

It was extremely impressive, Ash had to admit.

But then again, it was also true that he could raze the entire city with his Badges within a few hours, so neither the defenses nor the soldiers manning them bothered him too much.

Once it was obvious that they were in sight, they quickly rushed towards the city so they were just out of range of any catapults or weapons the defenders had (or at least, hopefully they were out of range) and pitched their tents.

The only thing left now was to make their demand.

* * *

The governance of the city of Aroughs had been trusted to one Lady Alarice, who was known for her fair and level-headed decisions.

Unfortunately, she was no longer in charge as she had suddenly became ill and the regent chosen was her only son Edmund, who was the exact opposite of what the city needed at a time like this.

He devoted most of his time to drinking and other pleasures, and he was recovering from yet another night of debauchery when he was (very rudely in his opinion) shaken in order to wake him up.

"Wazzat? Wha…" he mumbled out before his headache returned and he opened his eyes to see the captain of the city's defenses in front of him.

"Sir, there is a situation," the captain said.

Edmund groggily shook his head and tried to get his bearings. It felt like someone was using Wood Hammer on his head repeatedly…

"Why'd you wake me up?" came the answer to what the captain had said.

The captain realized that the regent was most certainly not in his senses. "Sir, there is a small army amassed in front of the city walls!"

The words took a while to register with Edmund, but when they did, Edmund's eyes snapped open and he made an attempt to get up, which failed. He knew he had to immediately move towards the city walls and so didn't bother washing, or even changing out of his regal (though vomit-stained) tunic.

Edmund was subsequently half carried towards the outermost edge of the city's gates. It was a few hours past noon now.

Shielding his eyes from the sun's rays, Edmund took in the sight before him. Slightly more than a kilometer away, there were an array of tents colored in almost all hues imaginable which stretched onwards for a considerable distance.

Several people milled between the tents, cooking and taking and appeared to be engaged in almost all kinds of activities normal in an army like that.

"How long have they been here?" Edmund asked.

"About three hours, give or take since we first spotted them," the captain said. "As far as we can tell, they number from six to eight thousand humans and several times that number of Pokemon."

Edmund made his own preliminary sweep based on the number of tents he could see… and those numbers seemed to be plausible.

"Have they issued any demand or decree?" Edmund asked.

"Not yet."

Edmund began nervously playing with his handkerchief. "What about our scouts outside the walls?"

"We have received no word from them," the captain said. "I can only assume then that they have been captured."

"Are we sure that they're enemies?" Edmund frantically asked. "Could this be some test or group under Lady Linnea's command?"

Both of them knew that this was highly unlikely and just a faint hope of Edmund's that this was not a foreign army.

They continued to watch the mass of tents when a lone figure detached from them and began advancing towards the area in Arough's immediate environs, which had a few farms and estates belonging to some wealthy landlords. The figure then released a Pokemon- an Altaria, upon which it rode and rose to become nearly level with the city's wall and flew so close that Edmund could see the rider's face.

Edmund frowned. "He looks familiar…"

"That's Duke Hamnet, sir," the captain said. "Lady Linnea had his sketch posted and distributed, remember?"

"Ah yes… he looked familiar," Edmund mused.

Duke Hamnet surveyed the garrison assembled at the walls and took out a megaphone.

"Citizens of Aroughs!" he shouted and the voice reached even the spectators who had begun to amass below the walls. "I am Duke Hamnet, and I speak to you on behalf of Sir Ash, the current First, Second, and Third Gym Leader, Arceus' Favorite, the Celestial One, and the liberator of people from the rule of the corrupt Gym Leaders! Your overlord, Lady Linnea has attempted to starve us out by refusing to ship us grain! Know this: that our power and weapons are beyond compare! Our leader could demolish your walls as a child would a stack of wooden blocks! Our siege weaponry can shake the earth itself! We give you a proposal of mercy, surrender now and we will only take the government's sources of grain. Your people, Pokemon, and belongings will all remain safe. Deny this, and our wrath will be directed towards you! We await your answer by dawn."

Duke Hamnet then returned back to his camp.

As Edmund watched the Altaria retreat across the horizon, he began biting the corner of his handkerchief and sobbing as quietly as he could.

Why did this have to happen to him?

Edmund knew that he was regent simply because Linnea and Li-han couldn't have bothered to appoint one to Aroughs as both were busy with other matters and so he had been chosen and that neither of them had any special liking for him so he knew that being Lady Alarice's heir would not spare him from punishment.

He had received no word from Linnea that an army was approaching, only that most likely a small raiding party would come, and when that happened they were to burn their grain using explosives that they had been supplied.

Only that the explosives hadn't been placed where they were supposed to. When the explosives had arrived, Edmund _should have_ placed them near the grain supplies as soon as possible, but it had been his birthday and he had been busy with celebrations, and one thing had led to another and he had completely forgotten to do so.

"Is their leader with them? This Ash, I mean?" Edmund asked.

"We don't know sir, but it would make sense if they got through the barrier," the captain answered.

Edmund gulped. If their Gym Leader wasn't with them, then they could easily hold them off. If he _was_ with them, then they wouldn't stand a chance.

Below, near the walls, the news was already spreading like wildfire from place to place and soon the entire city would know of the barbarian's offer.

Whatever they were going to do, they had to do it quickly.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	32. VS Linnea V

**A/N: Thanks Julie Togepi, the cliffhangers are mostly for excitement.**

After giving his announcement, Duke Hamnet returned to camp unharmed.

"So, how'd they take it?" Ash asked.

"I can't be sure yet," Duke Hamnet said. "But they did seem to recognize me. And I don't think they'll want to put up a fight."

"Did you see anyone you recognized?" Ash asked. "And how do they know what you look like?"

"There was a concert several years ago in Linnea's territory which Lady Freyja attended. It was one of the few times in her entire reign that she left her territory, and I went along with her, and so Linnea knows my face, and yours as well. Though of course she wouldn't send sketches of your face since it would contradict the propaganda she's been spreading about you, Milord," Duke Hamnet said. "I did not see Lady Alarice though… which makes me wonder whether she's still in charge."

Ash looked out towards the walls. "What if they send a raiding party towards us?"

Duke Hamnet's face began to resemble that of a Psyduck. "I- I honestly had not thought of that…" he seemed worried but then added, "I do not think that it would be likely however for them to launch a raiding party at us. We do look bigger than we are, and probably not many people have Pokemon in their ranks. I mean, perhaps if they were desperate enough… but I would still deem it unlikely."

Ash nodded. He then signaled to some workers who began assembling siege machines in plain view of the defenders of Aroughs.

Very few of the machines actually worked, and those that did would be of little practical use against a place like Aroughs with its high and thick stone walls, but the main thing was to give the impression that they were doing something and they knew it would scare the defenders.

After all, it was more likely that they would surrender peacefully if they were intimidated. It was for that reason that Duke Hamnet had the idea that everyone should pitch up ten tents, and they occupied the tents closest to Aroughs while the ones further back were scarcely populated or else had straw dummies propped up, thereby giving the appearance that they were far more numerous than they actually were.

In addition to this, Duke Hamnet had been the one to give the message rather than Ash. A ten year old child, no matter what power was available to him with the Badges, was not exactly intimidating.

Not to mention they knew there were stories that were quite strictly untrue regarding Ash were circulating around Aroughs, and though Ash didn't want them, they might have proved useful in this case.

Duke Hamnet retired to take care of the organizational matters of the army while Ash went and found Gulliver who went with him to explore the neighboring areas for Pokémon they might want to capture or battle against.

They had expected for their presence to frighten the people of Aroughs. But they had no idea how severely that was playing out.

Sure, the sounds from the city could be heard even from their camp, but they just thought it barely exceeded the normal sounds heard in a city like Aroughs at night.

Back in Aroughs, the moment that Duke Hamnet's message had reached the vast majority of people, a huge bedlam of activity suddenly exploded across the streets as people began frantically moving here and there and wondering just what was going to happen to their city.

The small population of people outside of the walls had quickly abandoned almost everything they had and had lined up outside the city gates begging to be let in.

"Don't open the gates!" Edmund had said. "It doesn't how much they beg or wail, but don't open the gates!"

"Are you certain sir?" the captain all but protested. "They barbarian has given us time till tomorrow morning, and the gates are of little use against him anyway. Furthermore, they might possess information about the city defenses which can-"

"Silence! Do not question my orders!" Edmund screamed, his face sweating profusely as he did a rather terrific job of completely losing it.

Beneath him, a riot was already breaking out and they seemed to be in little position to try and control it.

Miles away, Linnea, the Fourth Gym Leader, was training with no knowledge of the siege of Aroughs. Telephones were expensive, what with only Selena being able to make them and exploiting her monopoly as much as she could, and so there were only a few telephones in the various regions of Galea and were reserved for the highest officers.

As such there was only one within Aroughs: inside the central citadel, which was also the best place for them to hole up in case of a siege.

Edmund had made his decision. "Towards the citadel! Take me to the citadel! And we have to burn down the grain reserves!"

While the grain reserves were scattered in small depots across Aroughs, the biggest one which housed around eighty percent of the State's grain was located within the vicinity of the citadel. The explosives that Linnnea had sent were quickly found- because it is uncommon for people to forget where a huge stash of explosives are, and they were carted away as rapidly as the soldiers dared towards the silos while Edmund rushed to the confines of the citadel.

Edmund ran to tell his mother everything- she was hardly half-conscious so he assumed most of it was lost on her, and then went to dial the telephone in order to communicate to Lady Linnea what had happened.

He had left the burning of the stores of grain to other people and had assumed it would have gone ahead perfectly fine without his supervision.

How very wrong he was.

See, it was here that the Gym Leader's strategy had begun to backfire against them. They had naturally been afraid the moment that Ash had toppled Marley and knew that the would be coming for them, so of course they wouldn't want a huge rebellion and people leaping to join him when Ash did move against them.

Their solution to the above had been simple propaganda. The image they had painted of Ash Ketchum was of a barbarian who stretched over eight or ten feet tall with muscles that bulged more than that of a Machoke's. He was more cunning that a Mawile and enjoyed feasting on the flesh of his opponent's dead Pokemon, and enjoyed crushing his enemies in the cruelest ways imaginable (the people, of course, were left to imagine their own details on exactly what these ways were).

He wore the skin of a Pyroar. He stank so badly people would faint in his presence. His eyes were as red as a demon's, and he had over eight hundred assorted concubines to sate his depraved lusts, which were usually not enough and he and his commanders would willingly tear young girls from their parent's arms. He possessed the most terrifying Pokemon imaginable, hordes of Gyarados- each capable of razing a city, legions of Salamence- each capable of burning a village to the ground, and an army of Tyranitar, each capable of generating earthquakes that could collapse a skyscraper.

An that was just Ash, and not anything about his soldiers. His soldiers were more numerous than all the Tentacool in the ocean, more numerous than the Zubats in the uncountable caves of Galea, more numerous than the drops of rain that fell during the Monsoon, and more numerous than the grains of sand in the desert. They were not stopped nor deterred by wind, rain, sun, snow, or even the prospect of death. They would slaughter all living things inside a city that refused to obey and leave the carcasses around while the stench spread for miles. And of course, all of them were unclean and smelled like a herd of Muk.

This overblown picture was painted by the Gym Leaders so that no sane person who had been presented with this view would ever side with Ash Ketchum. And they were really good with painting the picture and selling it.

Now, this huge lie was about to explode right in Linnea's fat, lying face.

The propaganda program had worked so well and terrified so many people that when the citizens of Aroughs learned that Ash was at their doorstep that the idea of resistance completely vanished from their minds.

Nope. There was no way that they were going to fight. Even though the reality was that Duke Hamnet's threat had no actual weight behind it.

"Surrender! Surrendering is our best option!" one of them said in the market square. "If we resist, we'll be destroyed!"

"They say he only has around eight thousand soldiers though…" one of the muttered. "We have over eight hundred thousand people in this city. What could they do?"

"What could they do?" one hysterical lady practically sobbed out. "What can we do? We have no Pokemon! And those people are bloodthirsty soldiers! And we only see eight thousand, what if he has a huge reserve with him? Hmm, what then?" She then grabbed her daughter, only ten years old. "And what would they do to her, huh? I would sooner see her killed than fall into the hands of those ruffians. Or what happens to us if any of us if we resist?"

This sentiment was widely echoed and so any hope of resistance was quickly quashed.

And this was before the sentries had begun to get all jumpy too.

"Siege engines!" one of them suddenly screamed. "Sir, they're building siege weaponry!"

The captain of the watch stretched his legs to find to his dismay that the sentry was right. They _were_ building some things that looked huge and seemed capable of doing, well, some things.

Once the young lad who had first seen them was off-duty, he proceeded to a nearby tavern where, after being urged on after several drinks, he began describing what he had seen to a growing crowd, his story getting wilder with each retelling.

"I saw them, and there were at least two dozen of 'em! Siege machines, capable of tearing down the walls a dozen times over, and throwing boulders as large and as heavy as a Golemn!"

In truth of course, the siege machines could hardly do anything, but as the boy had never seen a siege machine in action, perhaps his hyperbole could be forgiven in this case.

"Have they started firing yet?" the barman asked.

"Nah, they're just standing there and fixin' them up," he replied. "But they'll start soon, I'm sure."

"What about our counter-artillery?" someone asked.

"Haven't been used in several decades," the boy said. "It'll take several hours to get 'em running up again, or even more. Who knows what they can do at that time?"

With all of this, it was not long before pure hysteria gripped the city.

Most, if not all of them, had reached the exact same conclusion. They were not going to fight for Linnea and be slaughtered for her.

The explosives were difficult to carry, with various measures being taken to prevent them from exploding in the middle of the street or being stolen by potential arsonists. As such, they made their way towards the main storage area only slightly faster than a Slakoth, and were easier to spot than a Snorlax bumbling through the streets.

As you can imagine, the people of Aroughs were certainly not stupid, and when they say this thing moving towards the area where most of the grain was held they very easily put two and two together.

A huge mob soon engulfed the people transporting the explosives.

"Stand aside! By Sir Edmund's and Lady Linnea's orders, we have to burn the grain reserves! We cannot let them fall into the barbarian's hands!" one of the soldiers barked at the crowd.

"And then what? You people will just disappear and Lady Linnea will be safe in her luxurious castle while we either starve to death, or worse, fall into the hands of that barbarian!" someone shouted back.

The officials may have been trained soldiers, but they were hugely outnumbered and soon lost control over the explosives.

"If we're going to surrender, we're going to need to get rid of these explosives," someone said.

"Yeah, we should burn them!" someone else added.

"Shut up Steve!" several people shouted at once.

The explosives were taken away and dumped into a nearby unused well. Most of the soldiers managed to escape in the resulting confusing.

The city fell into complete anarchy now as any symbol or office of the government was attacked.

It wasn't only the civilians, however. Over half of the city's officials and soldiers had decided it was better to give up.

The rest of them managed to work their way towards the citadel, whose walls were quickly locked and completely barricaded. This wouldn't be much of a defense from a Gym Badge, but it would protect those inside from the mob's wrath outside.

At least it would, temporarily.


	33. VS Linnea VI

**A/N: Thanks for the review, Julie Togepi. And yes, propaganda does have its disadvantages, as I liked to point out.**

Edmund dialed the number only to be taken to someone who told him to stay patient while they routed his call.

After an agonizing five minutes, he was told by a robotic female voice that Lady Linnea was busy training and would not be taking calls right now, but he could leave a message after the Kricketot's chirp.

Edmund sighed and said what had happened in three short sentences as the phone then disconnected.

He turned around and buried his face into his hands, wondering what he was going to do. With all the negativity going through his head, it would have been a delightful feast had a Shuppet been near by.

Instead of trying to work out a solution though, he found himself drawn to the comforts provided by a strong bottle of wine, and after a few glasses he found himself laughing and sobbing alternatively until he finally fell asleep.

He was jolted awake a few hours before midnight. A guard was hurriedly telling him that a mob had seized all their explosives and had surrounded the citadel. They were rioting outside, but they had yet to try an assault on the citadel, which was most likely to be unsuccessful. The citadel was extremely well fortified and could last against a much larger force for a long time.

Bad news kept trickling in, like how the enemy apparently had siege weaponry, which, to all eyes, seemed to be extremely formidable.

With the citadel well stocked they could hold out for an almost indefinite time, which, was in part- to Edmund's chagrin- the fact that little more than a tenth of the city's garrison had elected to hole themselves in the citadel. The rest had either sided with the mob, or had decided that making their way towards the citadel was too dangerous with the streets in practical anarchy.

And to top it all off, Lady Linnea was apparently asleep, exhausted from a day full of training and wasn't taking any calls.

While Edmund knew that the angry mass of commoners was not much of a problem, he had no delusions about what the barbarians outside the gates of Aroughs could do.

The walls would be of little use against them.

* * *

The dawn of the next day left Ash and his siege party waking up to find that the gates of Aroughs had opened up, and there were white flags flying all around.

"Could be a trap," Gulliver had said, thereby unnecessarily saying what practically everyone in the siege party was thinking out loud.

"Well, only one way to find out," Ash said. "Everyone else stay back, I'll go on Arcanine and move towards the gate and find out what they want."

"Are you sure? I could go instead, after all, they recognize me, and they might lose their fear once they see you," Duke Hamnet said.

Ash smiled, one that his Pikachu returned. "I don't have to show them my Badges… not yet at least. When you gave them the message, it was at a relatively safe distance, but if you just walk in there alone, or if all of us walk in there, we could get ambushed. I don't know if I can defend a party that large using my Badges, so I think it's best I do this solo to get an idea of what they want."

Duke Hamnet nodded, seeing the sense in the plan. "Another thing, Sir Ash, though this might be of little consequence, apparently we managed to find some radio signals coming from the sea."

"Oh," Ash said, completely unsure of what to make of that.

"What does it mean?" Gulliver asked.

"The thing is the only thing from the sea would be in Wade's domain-"

"So he's finally contacting us? What's he saying?" Ash asked.

"Nothing, Sir, all that we could pick up was the nursery song 'Mary Has a Little Mareep' played over and over. It seemed to be directed everywhere, but didn't seem to come from any of the stations we know to be Wade's but does seem to come from the sea," Duke Hamnet said.

Ash just scratched his head. He had heard that nursery rhyme before in Kanto and Kalos too once. "Huh- well that's weird. But I guess there's nothing we can do about it. Tell me if the message changes or something."

Once the sun was up properly and Ash had finished his morning routine, he and his Pikachu slowly rode towards Aroughs on an Arcanine. They made sure to be slow and walk in full view of the people massed near the gates, a crowd which only seemed to grow larger and larger as they saw only a solitary person riding towards them.

Ash and his Pikachu took a good look at the crowd. Most of them were soldiers, but there were some civilians and even some children who seemed to have sneaked in there without anyone's permission.

"I'm here to negotiate terms for Sir Ash's army," Ash said as he drew close enough, trying to change his voice so his Kanto accent didn't stand out as much. "Which one of you is the leader?"

One of the soldiers stepped forward. "Well, no one truly speaks for us all or leads us, but I've been, ah- well, elected-" in truth the man had the responsibility heaped unwillingly on him, as no one wanted to be the one to deal with the barbarian, "and I guess that would be me." He then took a good look at Ash. Ash fidgeted slightly, on second thought, if he had wanted to hide who he was, he really should have also changed his clothes. "Does…. Sir Ash usually send you to negotiate his treaties for him?"

"Uh, well you could say that I'm an important part of it," Ash said. "I- I mean, we, wanted to know if your surrender was genuine."

"I see," the man replied, and looked at Ash with a sad look kind of how one would look at an abandoned Poochyena left on the sidewalk. "Does Sir Ash usually send children to scout out dangerous areas for him?"

"Uh, well," Ash mumbled under his breath. He had enough bad PR already, but he wasn't sure if this was a good time to tell them of his identity. Yet. "Well, I usually do a lot of the dangerous stuff… I suppose you could say that."

"Ah. It was simply that I had a son only a few years older than you are… he was working as a scout," the man barely repressed a sob at this. "What- what exactly had happened to them?"

"Oh, all of them were captured," Ash said. "I- ur, Sir Ash ordered that none of them were to be killed. I can't really speak for him but I think if everything goes well he'll release them."

The man let out a breath of relief and there were whispers throughout the crowd, which were getting louder by the minute.

"So, all of you have surrendered?" Ash asked. "Where is Lady Alarice?"

"Lady Alarice is ill currently, and her place has been taken by her son, Sir Edmund," the man replied. "And, all of us have not surrendered. Most of us have, but a few of Lady Linnea's loyalists have barricaded themselves in the citadel, but that's all they've done. If what you want is grain, there's plenty of it in the silos kept near the citadel."

"Lead the way," Ash said.

As they made their way through the streets, they were constantly surrounded by a crowd that melted in their path as they advanced. Citizens of Aroughs, of all ages and occupation seemed to want a glimpse of this invader to satisfy their curiosity.

Ash wasn't sure what he should do- should he smile and wave to the crowd? Or just stoically move on like they didn't exist?

In the end he found himself unable to do either- he just stole some glances at the crowd. The people would always avert their eyes when Ash's gaze met theirs.

The silos were huge- and as Ash took in the inside of one, he couldn't help but think that this was more than enough grain. At least, he thought so, it wasn't really like he had much clue about how much grain would be needed.

"I hope this is satisfactory," the man leading him had said. "Our harvests have been good under Lady Linnea- and we've had a large surplus this year anyway since the market's shrunk and we're not selling to a good part of Galea anymore."

"I think it is," Ash said, stealing a glance at the citadel. He could swear he saw the reflection of a telescope pointed at them. "Well, I'll be going back to report then."

He withdrew his Arcanine and then mounted his Fearow, going back towards camp as fast as he could.

"To think- the child's remarkable with Pokemon at even this age!" one of the ladies said, despite herself.

"But his clothes are weird," another one said. "And what was with those marks on his cheeks?"

Ash was able to reach back camp within a few uneventful minutes and landed to see that Gulliver and Duke Hamnet were already waiting for him.

"It went pretty well," Ash said before he had even landed. "They'll give us the grain, and from what I can tell, there's a whole load. But the thing is that some of them haven't given up and are locked up in the citadel."

Ash gave them a longer version of what he had seen.

"Ah, well then," Duke Hamnet said, rubbing his hands excitedly. "So some of them _have_ decided to put up a fight. Well, we should probably evacuate the area around the citadel and then lay siege to it then."

Ash and Gulliver exchanged looks.

"I don't really see the point," Ash said. "There aren't enough of them to really do anything. It seems like a waste of time."

"Yes- but there's always the risk that-" Duke Hamnet began.

"Oh come on, we know you're just rarin' to get some fightin' done, but don't go around pickin' a fight for no reason," Gulliver said.

Duke Hamnet reddened. "I assure you that that is not the case! We have good reason to try and take the citadel- they might still have explosives and they might be getting desperate! In a moment of helplessness they might decide to start executing their own citizens, or try to burn down the grain supplies! Plus, there food has to run out sooner or later, so something will have to be done."

Ash rolled his eyes. He would do something, of course, but what exactly was something they'd need to work on. "Let's start getting the grain going first."

"As you wish," Duke Hamnet said. "Also, it may interest you to know that the transmission has stopped broadcasting."

"Huh," Gulliver and Ash said at once.

* * *

Meanwhile, Edmund finally managed to get a line to Linnea, who instantly looked furious.

Edmund gulped. Clearly the message had gotten through.

"How did this happen?" Linnea asked.

Edmund elaborated on the army and the mob, but conveniently left the part about his mistake out.

"And to conclude, the people of Aroughs have negotiated a deal with him. One of my guards found that he had already sent a representative," Edmund said. "They seem ready to hand over the grain, Milady, and it is known to be sufficient to feed this city for a long time."

Lady Linnea was too furious to speak and just disconnected at that moment.

"Wait!" Edmund said, almost throwing himself at the screen. "What are we to do? What of our reinforcements?"

Lady Linnea, meanwhile, had spun around and left to summon Li-han. This had some explaining to do. Before that though, she attempted to contact Selena with no result.

"What happened, Milady?" Li-han asked, noting that his pupil in no way looked calm.

Linnea responded by giving a rather rushed version of everything that had happened. "And the real question that arises from this- is why hasn't Selena warned me about this?"

She got up and started pacing around the room. "It isn't possible that she didn't know- she must have known. You can't hid an army that large from her spies! Why didn't she tell me then?"

"I don't know, but there has been no communication from Lady Selena's domain for some time," Li-han said. "As far as we can tell, there is something… odd happening and that has consumed all her attention."

"How long does a phone call take!" Linnea screamed. "Whatever, what's done is done, but make sure now that the rest of people begin evacuating and doing my scorched earth strategy properly!"

Li-han protested. "But surely now there is no point? Aroughs is enough to feed them for several months alone… if a battle is inevitable we should-"

"Do not explain my job to me!" Linnea said. She smiled, a dark twisted version of what should be an expression of contentment. "And I'll have a word with dear old Edmund… they won't be getting the grain. Even if I have to sacrifice a hundred soldiers for that purpose."

"There is one other matter then," Li-han said. "We picked up a radio transmission from across the sea."

Linnea raised an eyebrow. "Has Wade started to finally talk to us?" Wade had become as reclusive as His Majesty following when they had made a blockade against him… why was he back in the picture now?

"I do not know," Li-han said. "It didn't come from one of his established stations strangely enough, and stranger still the content of the message was just a nursery rhyme played over and over."

Linnea's gaze could have bored holes through steel. "Is that important enough for you to come and tell me? A nursery rhyme? What does Wade want to say? The entire world's going crazy…"

Li-hand couldn't disagree with that.

 **A/N: And that ends that. Also, if you thought that it is way too convenient Selena isn't helping out Linnea, don't worry, that's explained later. (Yes, it is rather tiring saying that, but that's how it is.)**

 **Thanks for reading again, and do review if you liked!**


	34. VS Linnea VII

**A/N: Thanks Julie Togepi. As for why Ash couldn't just say who he was, well, he didn't want to start negotiations with the idea that they were dealing with a kid. DaniJIE, Ash was pretty much chosen partly because he was just there at the right time and partly due to other reasons. I don't know much Spanish and hardly remember what I learned.**

 **Now, two things. First of all, I've changed the first chapter. I have had feedback that the intro wasn't that good, and so something I was going to put into this chapter is now in the updated first chapter. I've only changed the first few lines though before the horizontal rule so you don't need to read the whole thing again, but it is something related to the plot. I'll try not to alter the earlier chapters too much though since it might get confusing.**

 **Secondly, you may have noticed that the picture for this fanfic has changed. In case you're wondering just what that is supposed to be, it is a map of Galea. I had made a hand-drawn one but it didn't work well with uploading so I made this rather less awesome one that looks like it came from paint but sort of gave the idea of what Galea looks like fine, but the problem is when I've put it it is way too small to see. So, if any of you have any clue on how I can put a bigger photo here on fanfiction for people to see, I'm all ears.**

In the two days following Arough's surrender, there hadn't been any major incidents.

That's simply another way of saying that while there were three dozen complaints of graffiti, four of theft (these were put down rather quickly), twenty-seven bar brawls, and approximately thirteen dozen counts of littering against Ash's siege party, but nothing overly serious.

After all, it had been difficult to hide Ash's identity for long, and when it eventually came out there wasn't a rebellion… or at least not a full-scale one. It was becoming increasingly obvious to the citizens of Aroughs that they had seemingly overestimated and overreacted to the threat at their gates.

The threat of Ash's Gym Badges were more than enough to prevent any further resistance, however. But he hadn't used them up till then, and out of sight frequently equaled out of mind.

"We should probably leave," Ash said, voicing his opinion on the matter to Duke Hamnet and Gulliver.

They were standing near the silos, with Ash's Roserade training against his Pikachu. Roserade kept shooting out vines with increasing speed, with Pikachu trying to dodge all of them. The sun had hardly come up from beyond the horizon a few minutes ago and the crackle of the whip echoed across the presently empty streets- empty, that is, save for the three of them.

"I mean, we should be able to get the grain out soon," Ash said. "And I don't like staying here for too long."

"I have to say I agree," Duke Hamnet said.

Duke Hamnet's earlier idea was to leave a small garrison to man the city while they moved on to a different place, but he had underestimated both how much grain the city could yield and how hostile its citizens were.

"How long will it take for us to get what's left and get out?" Ash asked.

"Only another day or so," Duke Hamnet said.

"In that case, we should split up," Ash said. "I'm guessing you guys can make the way back on your own with all the grain, and then I'll go on ahead with some people to track down Linnea and battle her like we did with Thomdolt."

"Sounds like a plan," Gulliver said. "Can't see what could go wrong with that."

Just then, a huge screeching noise echoed across the city. Several drowsy people peeked out of their windows, wondering what it was.

"What was that?" Ash asked. His Roserade and Pikachu had stopped training once they heard the noise and were now glaring at the nearby citadel.

The source of the noise was easily discovered: ever so slowly, the huge gates to the citadel were opening. There were several cries of a Pokemon.

"What was that?" Duke Hamnet asked.

"It sounded huge," Gulliver muttered.

Ash whipped out his Pokedex, which read the cry and began speaking: _Mamoswine, the Twin Tusk Pokemon. Mamoswine is the evolved form of Piloswine. Capable of withstanding the fiercest frost storms, this Pokemon is also capable of generating huge earthquakes and whipping up large blizzards._

Duke Hamnet looked alarmed. "They're going to attack!"

"What makes you so sure?" Gulliver asked, taking out a Pokeball.

"I don't think they're opening the doors with a horde of Pokemon to surrender Gulliver," Ash said.

"It's not just that," Duke Hamnet said. "Mamoswine aren't found in Linnea's territory, meaning they were likely imported from Vanessa's region."

"Why do you look so worried?" Ash asked, noticing that Duke Hamnet was sweating like, well, a Mamoswine on a sunny day.

"The reason, I'm guessing, that they chose the Mamoswine is because they're terrifying when used in hordes," Duke Hamnet said. "And I guess because they think we'll be unused to them."

"But what makes them think they can beat us?" Ash asked.

"Maybe they don't know you're here," Gulliver said. "I mean, people have been seeing reflections from telescopes from the place for a few days. They probably don't know what you really look like and didn't see the Badges do anything."

Ash began forming a battle strategy as another wave of sounds came towards them, but then quickly realized that none of his Pokemon were suited for dealing with them. His Roserade was weak to Ice, his Pikachu's Electric attacks were ineffective against a Ground-type Pokemon, his Arcanine was similarly weak to Ground attacks, and his Fearow to Ice. His Haunter and Grimer were similarly ill-suited for this battle.

To his side, Duke Hamnet had sent out his Altaria and Gulliver his Pidgeotto (his Pidgey had evolved just the day earlier). Ash gritted his teeth- neither of those would last long against an Ice type.

The doors finally opened up to reveal five Mamoswine, each decorated to the very tips of its tusks with various ornaments. Their tusks were died purple, and what looked like some sort of chain mail was draped across their backs. They were adorned with golden chains that clanked as they moved, and their riders were also completely decked in armor with plumed colorful helmets and each waving the flag of Aroughs in hand- a Kricketune holding a sword on a red background.

Somewhere from inside, several trumpets blared.

The whole thing looked pretty impressive, Ash had to admit.

Regardless though, in an instant he decided that his Roserade would be the best choice. And he remembered that most of their opponent's Pokemon were probably weak.

The riders urged their mounts to charge and the ground shook as the five Mamoswine moved in unison.

"Petal now Roserade Blizzard!" Ash mumbled out in incorrect order, though apparently his Roserade could tell what the command was and used the move anyway.

The end result of the storm of petals was that despite their armor (which seemed mostly for show) two of the Mamoswine fainted while three were left damaged.

This didn't stop the riders though, who continued onward and shot Ice Beam attacks that Duke Hamnet's Altaria barely dodged.

Ash breathed a sigh of relief and ordered another Petal Blizzard, bringing down the rest of their foes. It seemed that they really weren't all that powerful, and the Mamoswine's riders immediately surrendered once they realized they were defeated, though as they took off their helms, Ash couldn't help but notice that they didn't seem to be too unhappy that they had failed.

And it was then out of the corner of his eye that he barely registered a flicker of movement, and he reflexively turned his head to see a young man, bereft of armor, moving on what appeared to be a shadow towards the silos.

And, in his hands, he carried red sticks what looked remarkably like-

"Explosives!" Gulliver shouted and pointed.

The man ignited one of them with ease and moved his hand to throw one.

Ash almost felt time stop as he reached for his Badges, and, drawing from their power, willed the world to change in a way that more suited what he wanted.

The stick of what looked like dynamite extinguished, and all of the others fell away from him and scattered all across the floor. His mount, which turned out to be a Haunter, froze, looking scared.

"Thunderbolt," Ash said, and the Haunter didn't know what hit it as it was defeated.

Ash breathed in, he had to admit that this somehow felt good- though that did slightly disturb him that he was _enjoying_ this somehow.

The guy didn't quit easy, Ash had to give him that. He kept trying to go for the rest of the dynamite as Duke Hamnet and Gulliver tried to stop him and ultimately had to be knocked unconscious so he wouldn't cause any more trouble.

The people inside the citadel tried to close the doors again, but Ash decided to stop this this time by jamming the gears with his Badges.

Before heading in though, they decided to interrogate the five riders, you know nothing much, just a couple of polite questions, a cup of juice, and the threat of a shock from Pikachu if they didn't cooperate.

From that they learned that Linnea had ordered that Edmund had to prevent them from getting the grain, and so after watching the surrounding area with no evidence of the enemy's commander, they decided to perform a gamble with some explosives they still had and the Mamoswine.

"Huh," Ash says. "That means, from what they're saying, that Linnea _still_ hasn't told them what I really look like. You'd think that she'd at least tell her commanders the truth."

"Well, the thing with propaganda is that it has to seem real," Duke Hamnet said. "And I guess she may not trust Edmund that much, or maybe she thinks that her commanders will do a better job if they fear you. She also might be afraid that Edmund might simply sign a deal with you if he knew the truth and thought you could be trusted."

"So, then what should we do?" Ash asked. "I mean, do we wait for backup, or should we just walk in?"

Duke Hamnet scratched his chin. "I'm confident that we can take it, especially with the Badges… but it might still be prudent to have a couple of our soldiers as reinforcements."

"But, the more people we bring- it's more likely someone gets hurt, right?" Gulliver said. "And then Ash can't protect 'em all with his Badges if they're too many…"

"Good point," Ash said. "I guess the best thing would be for me to go in alone. You two stay out here."

Now, both Gulliver and Duke Hamnet seemed uneasy at that, considering the fact that if something did somehow happen to Ash, they'd be stuck with no commander and no feasible way of defeating what would be left in Aroughs, and (mostly in Gulliver's case) because they cared about Ash.

Ash decided to override these objections and walked towards the gates. The citadel's door was present thirty feet above the ground, with the ramp that lead to it having been withdrawn. Normally this would have served as extra protection that Aroughs would have sourly needed, but it was of very little use against Ash, as were the numerous slit-holes in the door that could be used for firing either arrows or Pokeballs.

Ash forced the doors open and they crashed against the walls with a noise that echoed all across the citadel's courtyard. He heard several shouts from inside, indicating that the people there probably knew that something was going wrong.

Ash withdrew his Roserade and Pikachu and instead released his Fearow which he used to fly up towards the door. He then switched out his Fearow for his Arcanine.

Walking through the citadel reminded him of walking through a sort of maze. The doors and stairways were all confusing, probably as a further method to deter any invaders.

The rooms, a few of them at least, were nicely decorated with tapestries depicting battles that Ash had probably either never heard of or had heard and forgot several minutes later. For the most part though the place gave a cold, foreboding feeling.

Ash met a lot of people, but most of them either ignored him completely thinking he was a child, while the others saw his Arcanine and fled as they put two and two together.

After what seemed like hours, Ash found himself growing tired. He hadn't managed to get anywhere, and the only interesting thing that had happened was when a couple of soldiers confronted him with their Pokemon- but they had been swatted aside like Magikarp before a Raikou.

Ash wasn't sure what to do when he started hearing the pattering of footsteps and the sound of activity. He whipped his head and noticed the sound seemed to be coming from the nearby wall… but there was no door there. There were definitely a lot of people there though.

Still, it had piqued his interest enough for him to want to investigate, but he wasn't about to spend hours wandering the citadel looking for a way in, so, just this once he decided to use the Badges to melt a hole in the wall.

The noises from the other side intensified as the bricks melted away dripped towards his feet, though oddly enough it didn't seem to burn through the sole of his shoes and didn't seem to bother Arcanine's paws either.

The gaping hole in the wall revealed over two dozen soldiers standing in front of a door. Some of them were holding Pokeballs and others were wielding crossbows.

"Halt!" the guy who looked like he was in charge said. "Who goes there?"

"Uh, well," Ash began as someone pressed the trigger on their crossbow and shot a bolt at him.

It stopped dead in mid-air two inches from his chest and fell to the ground, but it still nearly made him swallow a lung in shock.

"I'm Sir Ash," Ash said quickly without wasting further time. "I think- I mean, you guys just did try to blow up the silos right? I'm here to, ah, take the citadel. So if you'd just surrender, I won't have to hurt any of you."

The whole thing instantly sounded lame to Ash the moment it left his mouth, and out of the corner of his eye he could tell that his Arcanine didn't think too much of it either. It carried none of the weight that Duke Hamnet's words had.

Someone besides the person who had spoken earlier walked two paces forwards. "Look, child, I'm not sure who you're trying to fool, but we have information on what this barbarian Ash looks like-"

"And it is all lies," Ash said.

"-and we've been charged the task of guarding Lady Alarice," the guy continued, apparently not caring for what Ash had said. "She's governed Aroughs for over two decades."

"And she's done a fine job of it too!" someone else shouted to nods of approval.

"So we're not going to back away or surrender, no matter what you think you and your pet can do," the guy said. "So, I'd really just back off if I were you, and we won't have to hurt you."

"You can't even if you tried," Ash said. He tapped his foot as he considered what to do next. On the one hand if Lady Alarice wasn't even in charge, it didn't really make sense to barge in on her room. On the other hand, she might've known something, and though he had heard that she was sick, he guessed it wouldn't have hurt to pay her a visit. Plus, she might know where her soon was hiding.

"Fall asleep," Ash said to his Badges and the soldiers, all at once, found their eyes rolling into their heads as they fell to the floor, snoozing.

Ash managed to get the door open pretty easily too.

Inside, he was greeted to a large, well-decorated room that looked like something straight out of Parfum Palace in Kalos.

Before he could take in much of the room though, there was a scream as some of whom he guessed were Lady Alarice's servants screamed as they saw him and the soldiers on the floor.

Ash ignored them as he saw the person lying in bed.

While he had been told that Lady Alarice was sick, he had never quite imagined something as grim as what lay before him. He was sure that there was no way a noble would have been as thin as she was, and her face was as red as a tomato which contrasted with how pale the rest of her skin was.

Strangely enough though, unlike everyone else in the room she seemed to be happy to see Ash. "Oh, there you are, Sam, I was wondering where you had run off to."

Ash had no idea who Sam was, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

"And Sam, while you're out again don't forget to take your lunch pail with you, it wouldn't do to go hungry again," Lady Alarice said with a smile that, if not for her illness, would have been a very heartwarming and loving one. 'Lunch pail?' Ash wondered. Had Alarice been a farm girl earlier?

As it stood, the whole thing just made Ash feel pretty bad about breaking in. But it wasn't like he couldn't make it better.

Ash approached the bed and there were gasps from the servants and he could tell that some of them were probably thinking of attacking him, regardless of how futile it would have been. So, he stopped right there.

Now, while the Badges might have kept him immortal and free from disease, he had heard that their powers on healing other people were more limited, but he guessed it wouldn't hurt to try. "Heal. Be well," Ash said.

It definitely had some effect on her as her face no longer looked so red and the color returned to her skin. She stopped looking at Ash so fondly and now her eyes moved between him and the Arcanine, looking confused as to who they were. It seemed to be too much for her right now though, and she fell asleep.

"He's killed her!" one of the maids shouted.

"She's just asleep," Ash said. "I think she'll be fine. Or at least better. Anyway, I'm Sir Ash and I'm here to force Sir Edmund to surrender. I don't want to harm him, so do tell me where he is before I have to force it out of one of you."

Most of them seemed adamant on keeping their mouths shut, but one rather young butler blabbed that there was staircase just round the corner which led to where Sir Edmund was.

And so began perhaps the least exciting stand-off of Ash's life.

Sir Edmund was barricaded in a room which was really of no hindrance with Ash's Badges, yet again, and was inside what looked like a throne room with what looked like a good hundred soldiers with him.

Ash made sure his Badges were visible and asked Sir Edmund to surrender and stop trying to blow food up.

Sir Edmund responded by pointing at Ash and saying, "The boy is a pretender! Kill him! Whosoever stops him shall have a third of my treasure. Consider that a promise!"

Of course the soldiers weren't able to do any actual harm to Ash, and with Sir Edmund looking so uncooperative, Ash decided to knock him out.

"He killed him!" someone shouted.

"Why does everyone keep thinking people are dead?" Ash asked. "He's just asleep!"

Once things had calmed down as the resistance was almost non-existent without their leader, he made sure to send a messenger to Duke Hamnet to explain what had happened.

 **A/N: Thank you for reading, and do review if you liked.**

 **Honestly speaking, I've always wanted to write about a siege which prompted this part of the story, and I hope you've enjoyed it. If not, well, it will be over next chapter and we'll be back on track with the story's original rhythm.**


	35. VS Linnea VIII

**A/N: Thanks for the review Julie Togepi. As for Ash being slightly out of character, to be honest I've always liked stories of sieges and do read about them, so perhaps it was a bit forced to give an opportunity to put them in, but I do think that given the circumstances, it was something he would've done.**

 **This chapter is a bit of a break from that and more of what usually happens to Ash in the anime. Sadly, I haven't figured out a way to make that picture any bigger.**

Moving the grain out wasn't that big of a problem anymore without the danger of an attack from the citadel, and by sundown the next day all of it was packed and ready to ship back across the border.

The people in Ash's siege party were happy to leave. Even happier than them however, were the people of Aroughs to watch them go. Happiest among them was Sir Edmund, who had quickly defected to Ash's cause, mainly because he knew that if Ash didn't beat Linnea… well, Linnea was probably going to quite literally fry him for the mess he had made during the siege.

As such, Ash had been armed with more knowledge regarding the geography of the region, and had been told that as of yet, Linnea had been in Ponyta City, a city present near the northern coast. As an extra precaution they had taken the only telephone in Aroughs so Edmund wouldn't tattle behind their backs.

Lady Linnea seemed to have recovered slightly, but as to how well she was going to do, only time would tell.

The next morning, Duke Hamnet was well on his way back towards the border with the baggage trains loaded, while Ash and Gulliver and his smaller group moved north along the way towards Ponyta City.

Whenever they encountered a patrol, they would simply hide in the bush, using Ash's Badges to aid them in hiding if necessary.

About two hours before sundown, the almost unbroken plain was interrupted by what looked like a huge rock formation in the distance.

"What's that supposed to be?" Ash asked to no one in particular.

"I think that's the Ruins of Grisigoth!" Gulliver said excitedly.

"What?" Ash asked confused, with his Pikachu echoing with a "Pika?" with the same meaning.

"Uh, you haven't heard of 'em?" Gulliver asked, and then remembering that Ash wasn't from Galea. "Oh, well, there was a Gym Leader named Grisigoth, and he made that monument right there. It's supposed to be really neat and stuff."

'Really neat and stuff,' seemed to be, in Ash's opinion, a gross understatement regarding what they saw.

The ruins were, in one word, beautiful. There were a collection of the remnants of buildings, collapsed and long ago decayed, covered in emerald green moss which draped them like curtains. There were ponds with lilies and Lombre in full number and various Pokemon of all sizes flitted through the grass and flowers scattered there.

Gulliver later told Ash that there had never been anything there, and in reality the whole thing had been built as a ruin. "See, Grisigoth reckoned that if he built somethin' grand, someone else would just go and tear it down. So, instead he decided to make something already broken, so no one would bother breaking it down further."

That sounded crazy to Ash, but not much more crazier than the stories of other monarchs he had heard of in Kanto and Kalos. And after all, the whole thing was still standing there, so Ash was reminded of, 'If it looks stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid.'

It wasn't like there hadn't been any damage to the ruins though. While they had survived being torn down they hadn't survived something else monuments tend to succumb to- vandalism.

It seemed that almost every inch of every wall was covered or carved by tourists form some long era gone by.

Some of them were pretty obscene, so Ash ignored those. Others were drawings of people and their Pokemon, or just stuff like 'Bash wuz here' or 'Suzanne, who wouldn't trade her husband for all of the gold in the world!'

One of them really did catch his eye, which said, 'Ash and Gary, best friends forever.' It seemed to be really old...

Ash did his best to hide his reaction, and the tear that slid down his cheek, from the others.

While the ruins were nice to be around, they were curiously empty, which surprised Ash since they looked pretty cool and from the graffiti and other stuff, he would have concluded that they would be filled with people.

Even Gulliver seemed to be surprised at that. "Huh… it is pretty empty. Wonder why."

"Maybe they heard we were coming and no one wants to be here," Ash said.

It seemed a plausible enough theory. After all, if people in Linnea's domain knew that a gang of soldiers had invaded, they were probably not very keen to go on tourist trips outside.

And, like most plausible theories, it was utterly wrong, as they would soon find out.

Some of the ruins were no more than an outline on the ground and a few bricks, but a few of them were much grander, including a huge castle draped in dead leaves. Parts of it were broken, but knowing that it had been built like that did give them some reassurance when they decided to camp inside it that night.

Now, Ash was a pretty heavy sleeper.

So heavy, as a matter of fact, that if his Pikachu hadn't woken him up, he probably wouldn't have noticed that Gulliver was gone until well after dawn the next day.

As it was, the crescent moon currently shone through a window as his Pikachu smacked him across the face.

"Owww!" Ash said as he woke up. "What happened?"

"Pika pikaa pii!" Pikachu said and went over towards Gulliver's now-empty sleeping bag.

"Oh, he's probably just gone to the bathroom or something," Ash said.

"Pika pii!" Pikachu said and began jumping around as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Quiet down, you'll wake everyone else up," Ash said. "Huh- that's weird."

One of the torches that they hadn't bothered to light near the wall was blazing with a small, yet dying flame. And there was a similar eerie glow coming from yet another one.

And, the dust one the floor had been disturbed oddly. Almost as if someone had been dragged away…

A chill went down Ash's spine. "It's probably nothing," Ash said to himself. "But we should go and check anyway."

The castle had looked spooky enough during the day, and it was much worse at night. Especially since Ash could have sworn he had seen small flames dancing in the halls before they went out.

"Gulliver!" Ash would shout, with no answer.

After ten minutes, he had gotten pretty fed up of the whole thing, and besides him, he noticed his Pikachu getting more feral and agitated by the minute.

And then there was the scream. A muffled scream that wouldn't have been audible at all to the others from where they were sleeping.

"Under us!" Ash said and began ripping apart the floorboards, which was far harder than it should have been for an old castle… until he remembered that it was only built to look old and that what remembered was probably really sturdy.

He managed to get a hole large enough to peer down, and once his eyes adjusted to the weird light, he saw a horde of shadows moving and oscillating around something outside his vision.

Ash considered breaking the floor, but then again, this was still a very old castle and he wasn't sure if it might bring something else down.

So, instead of using his hands, he used his Badges to cut a clean hole just big enough for him and swung down.

He was sure something scraped him, but he ignored it as he landed a good five feet below.

The shadows seemed agitated, and now Ash got a better look at what they were- Yamask. A huge, huge, horde of Yamask. There must have been hundreds of them!

And, in the center, was Gulliver, bound and gagged.

"Gulliver!" Ash said and helped his friend get out of his bonds. "What happened?"

"Ash! I was sleepin' and suddenly something pulled me from my bed!" Gulliver said. "You don't get it- these Pokemon- they were once human!"

The Yamask had now gotten very agitated and were closing in on them. Pikachu growled loudly at them and released a Thunderbolt.

"But it isn't of much use," Ash said. "There's too many of them…"

"I don't know what they was tryin' to do, but I think it was a sacrifice of some sort!" Gulliver said.

The Yamaks seemed really ticked off now, and had begun swooping at Ash and Gulliver. Ash released his Roserade and Haunter.

His Roserade began dutifully striking down the Yamask, but his Haunter on the other hand, for some reason, looked at Ash with a glum expression and then teetered to the ground, not fighting.

"Haunter? What happened?" Ash asked.

Haunter looked at Ash, and then at his Badges.

Ash suddenly had a vision- of a large field with peasants tilling the soil, of men bringing bricks, and lastly, of a large set of graves.

"They built this place," Ash said. "And Grisigoth wanted no one to be able to make something like he did. So… he killed them."

"Then what do they want?" Gulliver asked.

"I-I think they wanted you," Ash said. "I think they want to possess us."

"Why?" Gulliver asked.

"They- don't like what people have done," Ash said. "I guess- I mean- the graffiti and everything. Grisigoth knew- he knew that people would disrespect his monument eventually, so he killed the workers, and buried them, but not before he used the Fourth Gym Badge to- to-" Ash choked on his words. "I don't get it really, but I think he sealed their souls somehow and made them stay on as this place's guardians."

"Really? How'd he do that?" Gulliver asked. "And why wouldn't Linnea bother to do anything 'bout it?"

"I don't know!" Ash said. "Maybe she didn't care or didn't know that the Tempo Badge was involved somehow, but what do we do?"

Once Ash had explained everything, the Yamask had stopped attacking and were instead collectively wailing- a noise that was much more painful than their attacks earlier.

"So what'd we do?" Gulliver asked. "Can ya free 'em somehow?"

"I don't know!" Ash confessed. "Um, Badges, uh, release whatever seal binds these souls to this place and undo the power of the Fourth Gym Badge, um, please?" His Badges began shining, but he wasn't sure if it would work, This was foreign territory after all, and he wasn't sure how it worked when one Badge went up against another.

Regardless though, the Yamask eventually vanished, though whether they were free or had simply become invisible like Ghost Pokemon could was something Ash couldn't tell.

Haunter was going through the walls and floorboards as if wondering where his friends had gone off to.

"Did ya do it? Did it work?" Gulliver asked.

"Yeah," Ash said. "At least I think it did. Anyway, let's get back, and let's go away from these ruins the moment we get a chance."

"Yeah," Gulliver said. Along the way he asked, "Why'd they want to possess me though?"

"I think they needed a medium to tell people to stop vandalizing the place," Ash said.

"Oh," Gulliver said.

They found that no one besides Courtney had woken up, and they told her that they would tell everyone what had happened the next morning.

Needless to say, neither of them got any sleep that night and were drowsy the next morning when they set off.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, as always, and do review if you liked.**


	36. VS Linnea IX

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Julie Togepi, about them being reincarnated, hmm, that's an interesting possibility. I just put it there though. DaniJIE, I might try Deviantart, and as for in Spanish, sadly I don't think I'd understand that much. However, the fight between Ash and Linnea will occur soon.  
**

The next day as Gulliver and Ash set out, trying to rub the sleep from their eyes, they told everyone else what had happened at night.

In the daylight though, the whole thing sounded ridiculous even to those who were there, and Ash thought that most probably they didn't believe him, but they didn't say anything of course and it really didn't matter anyway.

Nothing of any much importance happened along the way. That is to say, several interesting things happened, but nothing overly dangerous.

Of course, Ash continued training as much as he could, but the thing was he was afraid he was slacking off in training. Training was only really good if you had someone to measure yourself against, and the thing was that he was already very strong compared to Gulliver and his gang so he didn't have much of a benchmark.

He did however start going through Sheldon's notes again. From whatever he read, he saw that the battle against Linnea would really be one of endurance, and not simply because she was allowed to use an octet of Pokemon. Out of her Gym Trainers, Li-han was the most formidable and an expert in tiring Pokemon out, weakening them so that his mistress could strike the finishing blow.

Unknown to our heroes, however, was the fact that a tragedy had occurred as they had passed by Hawthorne City along their way to Ponyta City.

Hawthorne City was like Aroughs in most respects, except for its governor, Otrar, who had been a loyal supporter of Linnea since her very roots before she had toppled the old Gym Leader. Now very old, Otrar had realized that in his last breath he might as well help in the expulsion of the barbarian that had threatened their domain.

And so, the moment his scouts reported that a small group along with Ash had left Aroughs and their movements were being tracked from afar- the scouts never risking contact and reported to Linnea who's henchmen later sent word to others- he had prepared the explosives for ridding the city of its grain, which was easy as Hawthorne City was where they were manufactured.

Once the gang had been spotted close to Hawthorne City, Otrar had demanded that the contingency plan be executed immediately.

Sadly though, someone had made a mistake. Someone had not been as careful as they should have been while someone should while handling explosives. We'll never know the name, or names, of the person or people responsible, but we will know that Hawthorne City blazed in a terrible fire for over seventeen days before it died down.

Ash maybe would have helped them, but he and his gang had traveled too far from the city to notice the fire...

* * *

Linnea was exhausted and sitting atop a raised dais in her palace. She had been training for a long time and now supposed that it was finally the time for a break.

After all, training had quickly gotten boring- as farming, in both senses of the word, was a deeply tedious task. Especially with no one close to her level for her to gauge how strong she had gotten.

The pretender was approaching her city, and would be arriving within a day or two. She had called for Li-han to return to the city- he had gone to the countryside on some sort of administrative matter or the other, but had yet to receive a reply.

She sighed, if only Selena didn't jack up the prices for her telephones so much, well, life would be easier.

Speaking of Selena, Linnea supposed that she hadn't heard from her in a very long time. As a possible cause, Linnea supposed, Selena had found out about Alan Lazar. Or maybe she was just having problems, but the silence was unsettling nonetheless.

A messenger entered and bowed, and said, "Milady, Li-han is dead!"

Linnea blinked. It took several seconds for the message to sink in. "What? How?"

"Lord Li-han had been looking very stressful over the days, and then a missive came that Hawthorne City had accidentally burnt itself to the ground. When he heard of the tragedy and of the people that had been killed, well- his heart froze in his very chest," the messenger said.

"But- but he's seen terrifying things before!" Linnea screamed. "How did this kill him?"

"Perhaps it was one too many," the messenger said. "And- I believe one of his grandsons was in Hawthorne City."

Linnea didn't believe it at first. When she did, she leaped from the dais, and using the Fourth Gym Badge, slew the messenger instantly. A simple thought, and the man simply didn't even exist anymore- having been separated molecule by molecule due to the Badge's power.

* * *

As Ash and his crew approached Ponyta City, so called for the vague resemblance of the land mass to a horse, a bedraggled welcoming committee awaited them.

"Huh," Ash said, peering out into the distance. "What're all those people doing?"

After watching them for a minute, someone piped up, "I think it's a funeral."

"Yeah, that'd explain the glum faces," Ash said. "But whose? And why are there several hundred people then?"

"Must be someone important," someone besides him whispered. "Maybe Linnea died?" He sounded hopeful.

"Don't be stupid, Linnea can't die. Not with the Tempo Badge," came another voice.

"I can dream, can't I?" came the reply.

They slowly made their way towards the city walls, but the funeral party had withdrawn till then. Once they were within a distance that could be heard, a voice came from the walls.

"Halt there, stranger! Are you Sir Ash, current wielder of the first three Gym Badges?"

"Yes!" Ash shouted back. He couldn't see who it was that was talking to him though.

"Lady Linnea then wishes to accept your challenge," the messenger said. "She awaits you at her palace."

The person still didn't become visible, but the gates swung open.

Ponyta City was much like Aroughs, except for the fact that since it was near the sea there was a large harbor visible, and in addition to that, the whole city seemed to be draped in large black banners. Lots of people hurried through the streets but gave Ash and his gang a wide berth. A lot of them seemed to be mourning.

The imperial palace was even larger than Freyja's villa and was far more imposing, though it wasn't as superfluously grandiose with waste. There were lots of soldiers, though the gate opened up for them and led into a main hallway.

Ash tried not to stare at the various lilies and ornaments that he would have probably stopped to look at and take a couple of photos with in a normal instance.

Linnea was in a large chamber sitting atop a dais, with the arena painted in wood.

Linnea was dressed in a fine purple kimono, though it wasn't pompous enough to impede her movements during battle. She shot a disgusted look at Ash as he walked in.

"I challenge you to a-" Ash began.

"Yes! I accept!" Linnea said. "I trust you already know my special rule, that I can use eight Pokemon?"

Ash nodded. Gulliver and his crew went towards the sidelines to watch.

"You'll face my Gym Trainers first," Linnea said. "All four of them."

"But you can use five, right?" Ash asked, confused. "And where's the guy named Li-han?"

That broke Linnea. She hadn't initially planned to get into a fight with the small child regarding her deceased tutor and adviser, but that broke her. "Where is he? Where is he? You should know, of all, child, he's dead," she spat.

Li-han's death was a major blow to Linnea's preparations for battling with Ash, as the majority of his Pokemon had given up the ghost along with him. Only his Miltank remained, and she seemed really depressed and Linnea didn't know how well she could fight in those circumstances. She couldn't arrange for another Gym Trainer worth his or her salt, and so had decided to forego one entirely, and pawned off the Miltank to one of them hoping that it would be of some use at the very least.

"Dead? How do I have something to do with it?" Ash asked, confused.

"Thirty-two years," Linnea said. "Thirty-two years that I ruled in peace and my domain prospered, until you had to show up and begin ruining everything. To stop you, I had ordered a scorched earth strategy, but the city of Hawthorne, sadly, has burnt to a crisp due to an accident. The poor old man's heart failed him when he heard the news."

A bunch of guilty feelings welled up in Ash, but these were quashed by a rising wave of rage. "My fault? My fault? It's your fault for trying to starve innocent people out, and _your_ fault for giving orders to burn everything!"

Linnea glared at Ash. "Let's dispose of words, child. If you want to fight, let's settle this in a ritual as old as time itself."

Ash had made a vague sort of strategy for handling the gym and obtaining the Tempo Badge for himself. Roserade was still one of his most skilled Pokemon, and he decided to start it off with her.

Roserade plowed through the Trainers. They were much stronger than other Trainers he had seen before, but that wasn't much of a threshold really.

The only thing that sort of resembled something along the lines of resistance was a Miltank.

At first, when Ash had seen it, it had seemed so morose and depressed he thought that it wouldn't even stand up right. After quite some prodding from her Trainer, which Ash was sure bordered on Pokemon abuse, it finally decided to fight.

It was a half-hearted attempt, but still managed to damage Roserade a bit, but that was compensated later on with a Giga Drain that left Roserade in perfect shape.

Linnea growled. All in all, this meant that her Gym Trainers had done quite literally nothing to this kid's Pokemon.

But no matter. She more than far outclassed her Gym Trainers.

"Flareon! Go!" she said and released her Fire type, with the specific purpose of picking on Roserade's weak point.

"Come back Roserade! Arcanine, go!" Ash said. He had no Water Pokemo, and he suddenly realized that one would have nicely filled in the gap with his team being weak to those Mamoswine, but he would have to concentrate on that later.

"Flamethrower!" Linnea said.

"Dig!" Ash said.

Arcanine dug beneath the earth and avoided the red-hot flames that sailed harmlessly above the hole it made in the ground.

"Flareon, figure out where it's going to come from," Linnea said.

Flarean kept an ear to the ground, and when Arcanine finally came up, it moved out of the way, but not fast enough, and it still sustained some damage, which Ash followed with a Bite.

If Linnea had meant to keep it as a war of attrition she was doing rather badly, Flareon eventually succumbed first, and Arcanine was hurt, but not very badly.

"Golduck!" Linnea said.

"Arcanine! Come back! Pikachu, you go!" Ash said. "Thunderbolt!" he ordered.

As the blast of lightning moved towards Golduck, Linnea withdrew him to instead switch out with a Steelix. The Pokemon was huge, with a head that scraped the ceiling. The Electric attack didn't hurt it in the least.

Ash withdrew Pikachu and switched out for Roserade, once again regretting that he had not thought to bring a Water type Pokemon, then again, he hadn't known about the Steelix or Flareon.

The Steelix and Ash's Roserade fought each other, with Roserade using Giga Drain, and Steelix using Crunch and other moves.

Linnea's Steelix was very sturdy, and might have been able to give Roserade a significant amount of damage, if it wasn't for the fact that Giga Drain kept restoring some health.

Steelix eventually toppled down, and cheers came from Gulliver and the rest of the gang.

Ash smiled, this was turning out to be easier than he had expected, but this was quickly wiped off his face as he noticed how much damage his Roserade, arguably his strongest Pokemon save Pikachu had taken despite the healing that Giga Drain provided.

"Skarmory! Go!" Linnea said. "Use Spikes!"

The spikes scattered around Ash's team would do their toll later in the battle, though they also discouraged Ash switching out. He didn't let it stop him though, as he sent Pikachu.

Pikachu was damaged slightly, but still up and kicking.

"Thunderbolt!" Ash said.

"Skarmory! Dodge!" Linnea said.

Skarmory weaved around the bolts of lightning- it was much faster than Ash had anticipated.

"Use Return!" Linnea said.

The attack did severe damage to Pikachu, though in good news, when Linnea went and used it again, it paralyzed her Skarmory. With it slowed, Pikachu took it out with a Thunderbolt.

"Go, Golduck!" Linnea said.

Despite the type disadvantage, Linnea was able to win with a single Water Pulse that Pikachu, being worn out, wasn't able to dodge.

Pikachu fainted, making it the first time that Ash had lost a Pokemon in the battle. Ash withdrew Pikachu and sent out his Roserade instead.

"Ice Beam," Linnea said coldly.

Now that was an attack that nearly knocked out Roserade, who had already taken damage from the spikes, but it barely hung on.

"Giga Drain!" Ash said. The resultant damage was encouraging, as was the fact that Roserade seemed to be slightly better.

"Ice Beam! Again!" Linnea said.

Roserade was just able to dodge it and sent a Magical Leaf out at Linnea's Golduck.

Her Golduck was now on the brink of defeat, but took down Roserade first with an Ice Beam.

Ash withdrew Roserade, his two best fighters were down. And though he had four left and Linnea had lost three, she still had one more than he did.

But not, as it would turn out, for long, as Haunter dealt a swift Shadow Punch before Linnea's Golduck could do anything.

Linnea then sent out her Kricketune. It was a Pokemon wide renowned for its singing, though sadly, despite Linnea's intense training, it was not a particularly powerful member of her team. And Haunter had managed to avoid any damage due to Spikes thanks to its Levitate ability.

As such, Linnea decided to open up with a Confuse Ray attack. This was a bit of a gamble on her end, but it paid off as Haunter hit itself twice in row before Kricketot finished it off with Bug Bite.

Arcanine finished off Kricketot quickly as Ash sent it out.

Linnea was down to a last three Pokemon. The tension in the room was palpable, this seemed to be one of those, 'it could go either way' sort of things.

Linnea sent out an Alakazam.

Ash had fought a Psychic type before, and his earliest memories of one was Sabrina's Abra.

But this wasn't going to end like that.

"Arcanine, Fire Fang!" Ash said.

The attack did damage, but not nearly enough, and the Alakazam's Psychic took out Arcanine.

"Skorupi! Go!" Ash said. This was bad, his only Pokemon besides her was his Grimer. Both of them were Poison types, and this would not go well.

However, it wasn't much of a problem as Skorupi used an X-Scissor quickly to take out the Alakazam. As a bonus, it even evolved into a Drapion.

Linnea's next Pokemon was her Liligant. It fought valiantly, but the type disadvantage was too much and all it managed to get in was a Stun Spore before fainting.

Only one Pokemon was left with Linnea, and if she hadn't changed her roster since Sheldon fought her, it would be an Elektross.

Linnea sent out her electric eel.

"Poison Jab!" Ash said.

"Dodge it and use Thunderbolt!" Linnea shouted.

The Elektross was fast, though Drapion managed to avoid the Thunderbolt. The two Pokemon kept striking and missing, until finally one of Elektross' Thunderbolts hit home.

Drapion seemed to be hit bad, but it also seemed to be pretty mad about the whole thing.

"Drapion! Sludge Bomb!" Ash said.

For the first time though, Drapion completely ignored his orders and went with another Poison Jab. This was effective, though it put it in range for Elektross to finish it off.

"Aww, Drapion," Ash said. He had lost to Richie when his Charizard had stopped obeying him, and this seemed like a replay of that.

Only he couldn't lose. He just couldn't.

"Grimer! Go!" Ash said. "Use Sludge Bomb!"

This attack not only hit its mark, but also poisoned the enemy Elektross. Now it was just a matter of outlasting it…

"Thunderbolt!" Linnea shouted.

"Minimize!" Ash said through gritted teeth. He only had to hold on just a bit longer…

Luck was on Ash's side though, as the Thunderbolts missed twice in a row, and the Elektross finally toppled over.

"NO!" Linnea screamed so loudly that even Ash was impressed- he didn't know humans could make such a loud and shrill noise.

The Tempo Badge which was a small blue harp hovered over and joined the rest of Ash's collection. However, instead of feeling triumphant, Ash had a sick feeling in his stomach. This was followed by a sour taste in his mouth as if he had just thrown up, and some dizziness.

"I wouldn't have lost…" Linnea said, so angry she could hardly speak, "if Li-han hadn't died…"

Ash knew she was right, and that made him feel worse about the whole deal. Was guilt why he was feeling so bad, or something else?

Unlike Marley or Freyja, Linnea didn't go quietly and tried assaulting Ash before his Badges put an end to that and knocked her using his Badges though, Ash felt a strange strain in his head that hadn't been there before. What was going on?

Now the ruler of the territory, Ash wandered the palace in silence. He needed a few moments to himself and motioned for Gulliver not to follow him.

Outside, the streets were still filled with people mourning Li-han. The funeral hadn't been something ordered by Linnea, it had been done by the people of Ponyta City in respect for a man they knew as one of the best administrators ever. And it wasn't just for him- but for all the citizens of Hawthorne City who had perished.

Ash hung his head. They had won, but what had it accomplished?

 **A/N: Thanks as always for reading, and do review if you liked!**


	37. VS Wade I

**A/N: DaniJIE mentioned Deviantart, I used imageshack but I can't put on a link here and I'm not sure about leading people off site. I guess the map will have to wait for now.  
**

 **Thanks for the review, Julie Togepi. Sure, Ash could give the Badge back, but then that would hardly solve anything. And Linnea isn't exactly good, after all.**

The empire of the Fifth Gym Leader, Wade, was the largest of all the Gym Leaders, even though the majority of it was seawater. The only bits of land that he controlled were various islands scattered throughout the oceans surrounding Galea. There was nothing beyond the oceans- only the void now that the Gym Leaders had banished Galea to another dimension.

It had been so long since that had happened, though the Gym Leader had not aged a day since.

Wade had long since quarreled with the others since that moment- his disapproved of the greedy, selfish, and outright paranoid ways of his 'colleagues' for lack of a better word. Under his rule taxes were low, all convicts were given fair and unbiased trials, and orphanages and public works were built. He also didn't restrict the use of Pokemon as much as the others did- after all, he was still an extremely formidable battler. Unfortunately, this had led to the others accusing him to collude with Ash Ketchum to overthrow the existing regime.

Wade would often travel around, and he usually carried his palace with him as a nomad would. It could be set up within two hours and disassembled in half that time.

His court was currently in session, with many of his officers present in his palace that was set up in the island of Narda for the time being.

Crouching and bowed before him, was Alan Lazar, Selena's left-hand man who had sought, and had been granted refuge with Wade in exchange for some information that he possessed.

Alan Lazar was not a remarkable man, he was short and his glasses and everything about him screamed 'bureaucrat' and this was not a misleading impression.

Alan Lazar wiped the sweat from his brow as he was given permission to stand. He looked at Wade seated upon his throne, and slightly lowered his gaze. Wade was not very intimidating, save for the fact that he wielded the Torrential Badge. He was a man of middling height and short silver hair. His clothes seemed to be made up of patches that were alternatively silver and black, making it look like he had some kind of armor on, though of course, something like that was ridiculous- he had no need for any kind of protection. He wore a long regal turquoise cape and had yellow eyes that usually framed a smile.

But right now they didn't. Alan was sure that Wade didn't like him, and truth be told, he would never have approached Wade for asylum anyway. He had written to Linnea first only to be rejected, and she had very recently been deposed of by Ash. Vanessa had sent no reply to him, and so, he had tried Wade as a last resort.

"So, you've betrayed your mistress," Wade said. "Do tell me what it is that you know which you want to use to bargain your way here."

"Mi-milord Wade, I bear knowledge regarding Selena's ideas and plans, or at least, the part that was revealed to me," Alan said.

Wade frowned. "A part? Are you not her second-in-command?"

"Uh- well, you see, Lady Selena never tried and told any single person all of what she did. All of us, including my superior, Jenkins, know only a tiny fraction of what she wants," Alan said.

"And that was a good choice, no, seeing as there was someone like you inside her system," Wendy, one of Wade's officers, said.

"Well- perhaps," Alan sheepishly admitted. "But certainly Milord Wade knows how my Lady Selena can be- and she had begun to work on a plan so heinous I could have not possibly have stood by her any longer."

"What is she doing nowadays?" Wade asked. "Selena, I mean?"

"Very recently, she was involved in an active campaign against the pretender, Ash. However, she seems to have withdrawn lately. From whatever I can gather, I think she has given up on helping others defeat him and has assumed that both Milord and Vanessa are going to lose," Alan said.

Wade snarled. "That woman has ruined- absolutely ruined the campaign against this Ash Ketchum! Her first mistake was to blame me- me of all people! She accused me of being the one to bring him to Galea, that I was aiding him!"

Truth be told, Alan himself had believed it until recently. "So it is not true then? You didn't bring Ash here?"

Instantly, Alan regretted saying that. What had he been thinking?

Wade's gaze could have pierced through a Shuckle's defense. "Of course not you fool! I know what will happen to Galea should the barrier be removed! And why would I want someone to rid me of my own domain?"

"Forgive me, forgive me, I meant nothing by it," Alan said weakly, not pointing out that perhaps, Wade's hatred of the others had grown so much that he had thought it the only way to teach them a lesson.

Wade's people had suffered quite a lot. Thanks to their flourishing trade across the ocean, they were some of the richest people in Galea. The only Gym Leader richer than Wade was Selena herself, but money couldn't make food grow out of the ground and was largely useless with Linnea trying to starve them out. True, they had lots of seafood, but that did not have all the nutrients that one needed to survive for long.

Wade added, "Let this Ash come to me. I will crush him like a Durant!"

"I hope so," Alan said so softly that no one could hear it besides him. He had not defected to Ash for the very reason that he knew that if Ash succeeded, well, Galea was gone then.

"Well then? You haven't mentioned anything very useful to me," Wade said. "Was that all you wanted to say?"

"No, sire- I've only started at the root of the problem," Alan said. "You see, I had known for a long time that Lady Serena despised His Majesty, the Emperor."

"And not without reason," Wade muttered. "What has that pompous brat done about this situation? I haven't heard from him longer than Vanessa!"

"Yes, but it is not simply inaction," Alan said. "Lady Selena believes that she should occupy His Majesty's place. For several months I noticed unusual activity, though I held my tongue, most notably, that Selena had ordered siege machines and had begun constructing warships. I had no clue as to what they were for, but with time I began to learn of a grander plan- that Lady Selena intends to attack His Majesty!"

It had none of the dramatic effect that he had anticipated. Instead, Wade looked at him, bored, and said, "She can't attack His Majesty, you imbecile. The Accord forbids it."

"But that is the main thing!" Alan said. "There is a loophole in the Accord!"

Wade seemed mildly interested now. He didn't say anything though, so Alan continued. "After the Accord was first presented to the Gym Leaders, both Selena and His Majesty added something extra to the final version before signing it. It was only a line, or so I gather, so no one noticed the change among the hundreds of pages that made up the Accord."

"How do you know this?" Wade asked.

"I overheard one of the members who had printed the Accord say something," Alan said. "They were later found dead, so I'm assuming that yes, it was true."

Wade tapped his forehead with a finger. "And what is this extra line, hmm?"

"I do not know," Alan confessed sheepishly. "The versions that Selena handed out as copies do not have it."

"Hmm," Wade said. "I long since suspected this- it was odd that Selena and His Majesty would have singed the Accord. After all, they are both very strong and could have benefited from taking the territories of weaklings like Marley."

"Also," Alan said. "I believe- though I cannot prove- that she intends to strike a deal with this Ash Ketchum, to either attack His Majesty together, or use him as a sort of auxiliary. I think that's why she has stopped trying to end him."

"Is that all?" Wade asked.

"That is the specific point of information, yes," Alan said. "Though I also know more about the minute details of Selena's administration-"

"I really don't care for the minutia of what happens in her realms," Wade said. "The real question, though, is that you are a traitor, Mr. Lazar, and as such, why should we let you live?"

Alan began sweating even more profusely. "Milord- we had a deal!"

"And you had a deal too," Wade said coldly. "With your mistress to serve her. And you turned on that." He glared at the tiny man prostrated before him and said, "And yet, you have turned somewhat useful for me and I don't particularly care for Selena right now. Wendy, take a look at what else he can say, and if something seems important, inform me."

Wendy nodded as Wade got up and left.

* * *

"So, we haven't gotten a reply yet?" Professor Sycamore asked.

"Well, Professor, I'm not sure that they can send us a response back," Clemont said, fiddling with a large machine that was attached to a small microphone and jockey. "Sure, sending waves to this place is one thing, but I don't know if we can receive any. You know, maybe this Galea place is kind of like a one-way window or something."

"Ah yes," Sycamore said. "And I haven't heard much from Professor Oak either, I think he still believes that Ash was caught by Team Rocket." As such Professor Oak had turned to finding Ash through Ash's extremely large network of friends- which was so large that Oak practically had eyes looking everywhere by now, but had no luck on that front.

The radio was still transmitting though, and several thousand miles away, a Team Rocket spy satellite's software zoned in on the words 'Team Rocket' and began intercepting all previous communication, though the admin in charge would only get the lyrics to a children's nursery song, so as you can imagine, she was not particularly bothered to tell her superiors.

"I think I might as Bill from Kanto or Lanette from Hoenn for help," Clemont said.

"Professor Oak hasn't heard anything either," Sycamore said. "Even with Dawn, May, Serena, Brock, Tracy, and all the others looking. It just makes me that much more sure that he's found a way into the place."

"Well, from whatever I've read, it's a pretty terrible place to be," Clemont said. "I hope we can find a way to get him back in time."

"Mmm," Sycamore said. "Then again, how much time is 'in time' exactly with the temporal differences?"

* * *

On the rocky coasts to the north of what used to be Linnea's domain, a single rowboat approached the shore. The only passenger disembarked and had barely taken twenty paces when a sentry spotted him.

"Halt!" the sentry said. "Who goes there? State your name and business!"

The man who had came from the boat said nothing, but simply held up an envelope with a seal that shimmered in all colors known to the human eye. He carried a milk-white flag in the other hand.

"That's a Gym Leader's seal!" the sentry gasped.

"I am an emissary," the man said. "I carry a message for Sir Ash Ketchum."

 **A/N: As you might have imagined, I'm bringing Team Rocket into the story. Having a story about Ash without them is kind of like having a story about Ash without Pikachu. I also want to bring some of his friends, right now I'm thinking maybe May and Brock? Do let me know what you think.**

 **Thanks for reading, and do review if you liked!**


	38. VS Wade II

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys! Danijie, actually Team Rocket isn't trying to help find Ash. Their satellites are just programmed to pick up on anyone saying the words 'Team Rocket' and record it, though it would be sweet if Jessie and James were worried too. Julie Togepi, sorry to leave it on a cliffhanger, but that's because there was a surprise in this chapter.**

 **As for who to bring, I am thinking that perhaps Serena might be better, but I'll get to that in the next chapter.**

Ash was dozing off in what now constituted his office when someone rapped on the door.

As Ash had nearly fell into his chair from exhaustion, he had told people that he didn't want to be woken up until absolutely necessary. Apparently this was something like that.

Ash rubbed the sleep from his eyes wearily as he glanced around the old-fashioned office. It wouldn't have looked out of the place of an old-fashioned samurai movie, save for the three telephones on one side of the room.

"Come in," Ash said.

The door slid open to reveal a messenger, who bowed and said, "An emissary has arrived from the ocean bearing a white flag. He says that he has a message for you, Milord."

"Huh," Ash said. "So Wade's finally sent someone. Why didn't he just call- oh wait, Selena might be listening on to that."

"No sir, it is not from Lord Wade," the messenger said. "The emissary is from His Majesty, the Eighth Gym Leader. He also had the Celestial Badge's seal to prove it. Shall I send him in?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Ash said. "And could you call Gulliver too? I guess he might want to hear what the man has to say- is it a man though?"

"Yes sir," the messenger said. "And yes sir." He bowed and left.

One of the phones began ringing and Ash picked it up to see Mr. Jennings.

"Ah, good to see you sir," Mr. Jennings said. "I was informed that an emissary from His Majesty had just come to visit you-"

"Wait," Ash said. "Do you have spies in this place who tell you what happens all the time?"

Mr. Jennings turned slightly red. "It is a necessity sir. I was merely asking permission to observe and comment."

"Okay," Ash said. "Though that means Selena can see it too, but I guess we can switch it off if there's something we don't want her to see. Is Duke Hamnet also going to be watching?"

"Ah, the young lad's probably too busy," Mr. Jennings said.

Just then, another telephone began ringing and Ash picked it up to see Duke Hamnet.

"Ah, good to see you sir," Duke Hamnet said. "I was informed that there was an emissary from the Emperor and I wanted to just see if I could pitch in and-"

"Wait, so you have spies here too that I don't know of?" Ash asked.

"Well- I just- I mean, well, wait, what do you mean by 'you too?'"

"I'm here," Mr. Jennings said.

"I'll make this a conference call," Ash said with a sigh.

With that finished, the door slid open to reveal a man who was about fifty. There was something oddly imposing about him and his hooked nose. He was wearing a tuxedo, though unlike the black-and-white of Marley's servants, his shirt was a light green, and on closer inspection, his suit was not actually black but a very dark shade of emerald.

"Do I address Sir Ash?" the man asked.

"Yeah,- I mean yes" Ash said, trying to look more imposing and formal.

The man saluted, but it was a rather lazy and sloppy salute. He didn't bow down either- Ash didn't really care about this, but after so long with people doing it, well, it became noticeable when someone didn't.

"I bear a message from His Majesty, the Eighth Gym Leader, wielder of the Celestial Badge, _primus inter pares_ of the Gym Leaders, the Emperor of Ten Thousand Years, the Son of Heaven, the Celestial One, and Heaven's Favorite," the emissary said.

Duke Hamnet snorted. "Very short title there."

Mr. Jennings had similar feelings. "So, he calls himself 'Heaven's Favorite,' 'The Celestial One,' and all these other titles reserved for the Emperor of Galea. Who does he think he is?"

The emissary suddenly wore a cold smile. "Oh, don't worry on that regard. The current Elite Four Champion is in no state to defy my Master's whims and fancies."

Ash blinked. "You mean it? You're telling me there was another Elite Four Champion and that-"

"Enough," the emissary said, holding his hand up. "Enough. I can talk no further, my oaths will not let me and anyway I have no desire to divulge anything." He held out an envelope at arm's length.

Ash was surprised to find his hands trembling as he took the envelope, but then again, his mind was racing as to what it might contain. Finally, he would have an explanation from someone who knew everything, and finally, everything would be clear!

He was disappointed before he even read the letter.

The first thing he noticed was that the paper that the letter was written on was of a terrible quality.

Up till now, the documents he had handled were made up of some material that was thick to the touch but light to carry and easy to read. Now, Ash was not the kind of person to go around judging the quality of paper when he went to a place, but the thing was that the difference was so much that even he noticed.

The letter seemed to have been written on a napkin. Ash suddenly had an image of the Emperor taking out a piece of tissue paper, blowing his nose in it, and saying, 'Hey! I have to write a letter to Ash! Let me use this rather than using something else! I was thinking of going green anyway!'

There was thankfully no snot on the napkin, but there was hardly anything else either. There was only one word written on it: DESIST.

That was all. The seal was on the envelope, the paper had no signature or markings or anything else.

Ash frowned. "What's the meaning of this?"

The emissary produced a flask from his tuxedo, took a swig, and then shrugged his shoulders. "I know not. His Majesty wished to write only that, and so that was all that was written."

"I know that's weird, but that's not what I meant. What does 'desist' mean?" Ash asked.

"It means to give up," Duke Hamnet said.

"Then why did he only write this much?" Ash asked. He had been expecting pages worth of information explaining in detail what had happened to Galea and why it had happened, and hopefully something saying that he would have help in escaping.

"He writes what he believes you are worthy of," the emissary said.

Duke Hamnet sneered again. "Your so-called Emperor rules only one-eighth of Galea, while Milord Ash controls half. I think it's obvious who's worthy of what."

The emissary wore that same cold smile. "Ah, but I was not talking about land area. I meant in battle prowess. Your master cannot hold a candle to mine when it comes to Pokemon battles, even if he were to hold seven domains together."

Mr. Jennings squinted. "You look familiar somehow… I just noticed that, it's like I've seen you before. Have we met?"

"Probably not," the emissary said, taking another swig. "You may have seen a sketch though. I am Fredrick, and I was the Eighth Gym Leader a long time ago."

"Wait- you're not dead?" Ash asked.

"Why'd you think I died?" the emissary asked, his voice getting more slurred with every sip.

"I don't know- I thought that was how things worked when a Gym Leader usually lost," Ash said.

"His Majesty is quite merciful and does not take pleasure in killing or harming others," Fredrick said. "Unlike the other Gym Leaders. If it were not for the fact that His Majesty intervened and forbade Selena from carrying out mass purges, several thousand people would be dead today who yet walk this earth. "

"That's… the first positive thing I've heard about him," Ash said. Fredrick's words seemed to have been genuine and free of scorn so Ash guessed that he wasn't lying. "What else do you know about him?"

"Very little. He likes growing Berries. He is an adept Trainer. Anywho, if you're done with the message, I'll go visit a bar before I head back," Fredrick said.

"Wait- I need to ask you some things," Ash protested.

"Well kid, I don't want to answer them," Fredrick answered. "And I know what you're going to ask me, lad, and I've been sworn to secrecy as I said earlier."

"Don't you want to know if Sir Ash has a message to carry back?" Mr. Jennings asked, incredulous.

"No," Fredrick said. "His Majesty said he doesn't really care for what you have to say in return. He says that it will make no difference in the end."

"Now what does that mean?" Ash asked. Fredrick eloquently shrugged, seemingly incapable of talking in a way that could be understood anymore. He stumbled out of the room as Ash turned around.

"Like seriously, what was that?" Ash repeated. "Is he always like that?"

"I don't know," Mr. Jennings said. "I never met him in person. Very few people have. And Mister Marley received very few tidings from him in the first place, but I could tell that he hated him."

"It does seem in line with what Freyja used to say," Duke Hamnet said.

"Ugh- yeah," Ash muttered, rubbing his head.

Ever since he had gotten the Fourth Gym Badge, he had gotten dizzy, had a bout of minor fever, and several sharp headaches which increased in intensity whenever he used the Gym Badges. He had written it off earlier as maybe just feeling guilty about all that had happened, but this seemed to be more than that.

"Are you all right sir?" Duke Hamnet asked.

"Ugh- it's just that I've been feeling weird ever since I got the Tempo Badge," Ash said. "It didn't feel good when I got it, and I've been feeling odd ever since."

"Oh dear," Mr. Jennings said.

"Is that what I think it is then?" Duke Hamnet said over-dramatically.

"What?" Ash asked.

"Badge Sickness," Mr. Jennings said.

"What's that?" Ash asked.

"Don't you remember- we had a discussion about it back when you had defeated Marley?" Mr. Jennings said.

"Oh," Ash said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I kind of may not have been paying attention…"

"Oh, well, allow me to explain," Duke Hamnet said with extra pomp while Mr. Jennings rolled his eyes. "You see, occasionally, it was seen among the old Gym Leaders that when the number of Badges they held increased, while it increased their power, when they had accumulated too many… well, strange things began happening. According to one account, 'it seemed like my Badges no longer wanted to be together, it was as if they were fighting amongst each other while I tried to use them.' And so some of them began suffering from fevers or even madness eventually…"

Ash obviously looked alarmed.

"But it didn't always happen, and the symptoms would vary, and we were never sure that it would happen to you," Mr. Jennings said. "And if you do feel like they're being too much, you can always appoint a proxy to take care of one for you."

"What's a proxy?" Ash asked.

"Oh- it's a replacement," Mr. Jennings said. "You just hand over one of your Badges to someone, and they take an oath to serve you as a vassal, and they have the Badge and its powers, but they take care of the realm for you. And he-"

"Or she," Duke Hamnet muttered.

"Or _she_ ," Mr. Jennings growled, angry at the interruption, "will be bound to still follow your orders and you can take the Badge back anytime."

"Oh," Ash said, looking a lot more relieved. "I think then that-"

Whatever he said next was drowned out as something crashed into the door. "WAIT! WHY WON"T THIS THING OPEN!" a familiar voice screamed as someone banged on the door. "I NEED TO GET IN! WHO LOCKED THE DO- oh yeah, it opens by sliding it."

Gulliver walked in. "Sorry, I came as fast as I could. And I forgot how the doors here work."

"Gulliver, are you really sweating that much or did you fall into a lake or something?" Ash asked.

Both Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet craned their necks to see Gulliver, before realizing that they were communicating via telephone and that this would make no difference.

"Kind of both, really," Gulliver said. "Where's the messenger?"

"He left," Ash said. "But don't worry- he quite literally said nothing important. I don't even know why he'd bother."

"He could be a spy," Duke Hamnet mused. "He could be scouting out or just sizing us up to tell His Majesty."

"Well, he said he'll be leaving soon," Ash said. "So, what were you doing?"

"Oh that, y'know how you said once that you needed a Water type?" Gulliver asked. "Well, you looked way too busy, so I thought I'd take a fishing boat and go look for some for you."

"Gee- thanks!" Ash said, elated. "But wait, where'd you get a fishing boat?"

Gulliver turned a bright shade of red. "Geez, I sort of appr- I mean, borrow- no…"

Ash sighed. "Okay, whoever you took it from, just give it back okay?" Ash said. It was for reasons like this that Ash had thought that if he was going to choose a proxy, it shouldn't be Gulliver. He was a great friend, but it seemed far too likely to Ash that he would start abusing his power. Ash thought that Celera and Mr. Jennings would be better choices. He wasn't sure about Duke Hamnet though- while he seemed nice overall he also seemed to like a violence a bit too much.

"Yeah sure," Gulliver said.

"But what did you manage to catch?" Ash asked.

"Oh, first of all, there was a Magikarp," Gulliver said. "I mean, I know they're weak and all- but you can train it to get a Gyarado! How 'bout that?"

"Oh yes, a Gyrados," Duke Hamnet said with a wicked grin. "Capable of leveling an entire port with a single blast and terrorizing villages."

"Right," Ash said. "But that seems a bit too hard to control. Isn't there something else?"

"Sure," Duke Hamnet said. "I have a Tentacool…"

"Nah," Ash and Mr. Jennings said at once.

"And I found a Staryu," Gulliver said.

"Hmmm, not sure on that," Ash said.

"There was also a Wingull, a Luvdisc, and a Remoraid," Gulliver said.

"Did you find a Lapras?" Ash asked, thinking about the one he had been with during the Orange League.

"No," Gulliver said. "I don't have an ice type…. I do have a Krabby though."

"Huh," Ash said, remembering that he had also had one.

"There's also a Seaking, a Horsea, a Carvanha- man that one was rare, and a Psyduck," Gulliver said.

"Psyduck huh?" Ash asked. "Golduck isn't bad, but if it is anything like Misty's Psyduck I might want to pass on it."

"Well, the last one I have is a Lanturn," Gulliver said.

"Hmm…" Ash said. "You know what, I think I'll go with the Psyduck. But I wanna make sure it's normal first."

Gulliver handed over the Pokeball, and Ash called in someone to clean up the mess that Gulliver had made while dripping all over the floor, and he couldn't help but think how there were now three Pokemon he had that had been given to him by someone.

How very like him.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, and do review if you liked, as always!**


	39. VS Wade III

As Ash put the Pokeball containing Psyduck away, the third phone began ringing.

"An unknown number," Ash said and picked up the receiver anyway.

The screen flitted to show a man with silver hair who sort of reminded Ash of Steven except that his eyes were a deep blue and he seemed to have some sort of medieval armor on. In the background, there was a room barely visible with some papers scattered around.

"Um, who are you?" Ash asked.

"So _you're_ the child," the man said. "I am Wade, the Fifth Gym Leader, and wielder of the Torrential Badge."

"Huh?" Duke Hamnet said and once again began craning his neck before realizing that it was futile.

"Right, conference call," Ash said while punching in the right buttons. "So, uh, Mr. Wade, what brings you to call me? After all this time, you know… " Ash trailed off as this was sort of sudden. Not to mention Ash had imagined Wade as being like a surfer dude and couldn't figure out why he was wearing armor- because that couldn't have been comfortable.

Wade squinted. "I didn't think it was necessary. And I certainly had nothing to say- I had assumed that Selena would be efficient enough at getting rid of you."

"Uh…" Ash said. "Does this mean that, well, you didn't bring me here?"

"NO!" Wade shouted and banged his fist on the table. "I am tired of saying it over and over again!"

"And the Pokedex?" Ash asked. "You had nothing to do with that either?"

"What's a Pokedex?" Wade asked.

"Never mind," Ash said. "So, then, uh, why'd you call anyway?"

Wade leaned closer to the camera. "I can only assume that with Linnea defeated that you now want to come to my domain?"

"Not really," Ash admitted. "I mean we have the food we need, and there's no real need for us to attack you."

Ash was telling the truth. With the immediate problem of getting some food gone, their next goal was to strike directly at His Majesty. Wade controlled most of the seas around Galea, but the portion that surrounded the Eighth Gym Leader's territory belonged to Selena, and to get to her, they had to get through a narrow strip of territory that belonged to Vanessa, the Sixth Gym Leader.

In the whole plan, there was no reason to go through Wade's domain. As a matter of fact, attacking Wade would be a waste of time since it wouldn't help them accomplish anything with getting to His Majesty, who was the one who knew what had happened and had spearheaded the Gym Leaders in a battle against the Elite Four.

Ash explained all of that, and added, "So you see, there's really no reason for us to fight, even if you weren't the one who sent me here."

"That's where you're wrong!" Wade said. "You are a menace to all of us, child. By your selfish actions, you've broken the peace that we've kept for so long and unraveling the barrier so that you can go home is going to end up killing us all!"

Ash rolled his eyes. " _Everyone_ says that. But no one says why or how. I was hoping His Majesty or whoever would tell me, but all I got was a napkin with the word 'Detist' written on it."

"Desist," Mr. Jennings corrected and then Wade said, "Sounds just like that guy."

"And what do you mean by peace?" Ash asked. "Linnea just wiped out several hundred thousand people!"

"Accidents happen," Wade said.

"Several hundred thousand people!" Ash repeated.

"Which wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for your interference," Wade said.

"Well, you're talking as if everything was perfect before I came along!" Ash said. Duke Hamnet, Mr. Jennings, and Gulliver all nodded. "I've seen what you guys did to your subjects."

"I… do admit that my, ahem, _colleagues_ did some rather reprehensible things, but it was all for the greater good, I assure you," Wade said. "And it matters not if you won't come to strike at me! Then I will simply hunt you down!"

His entire demeanor changed from slightly antagonistic to full-blown terrifying in a matter of seconds.

It would have been quite the threat, if it weren't for the fact that Gulliver piped up and said, "Uh… Lord Wade, I think you've forgotten that you can't. Truce and all, right?"

Wade was dumbfounded. "I forgot about that!" He whispered to himself, "But there's a loophole… but then I'll have to ask Selena about it…"

He logged off.

"Well, that was almost as awkward as the message from His Majesty," Ash said after a period of silence. Not sure of what to do next, he decided to see what the Psyduck was like.

He released the Pokeball to reveal a typical Psyduck, which at once waddled over towards Gulliver.

"No there, lil' fella. You're Sir Ash's Pokemon now," Gulliver said and pointed to Ash.

The Psyduck turned its head and continued staying near Gulliver.

"Uh, sorry 'bout this," Gulliver said. "I actually think it kind of likes me. I didn't even have to battle it, it just came with me quietly. Now go on, now, shoo."

The Psyduck got more and more agitated and then started crying.

"Okay, that's enough now," Ash said. "Uh, Gulliver, thanks for all the effort and all, but if it wants to be with you, then it should be."

"Um, but the thing is I pretty much caught all of the Pokemon by friendin' 'em," Gulliver admitted.

"Well I guess you can open up an aquarium then," Ash said. "Like really, it's great that you did all of that, but I guess I'll just look for another Water type."

"Okay," Gulliver said after he had pacified his Psyduck.

"So, about our expansion," Ash said, "I mean, I know we've just barely finished off Linnea, but don't we need to keep moving though? I, um, don't want to be stuck here forever." Ash hoped the last sentence didn't sound too obnoxious or rude, it wasn't that he hated Galea, in a way it seemed to be like the other regions he had visited, albeit pretty messed up along with that. And he kept wondering when he'd finally get home.

"We can move on to Vanessa, but the thing is," Duke Hament said, "Well, she's a bit of an oddity. She's not a skilled fighter like Wade. I've never personally met her though, but based on the rumors I've heard she's kind of-"

"Like Freyja," Mr. Jennings said.

"Ugh," Ash groaned and slumped in his chair at the very thought. 'Ugh' pretty much summed up his feelings very accurately.

"Well, Lady Freyja hated her though," Duke Hamnet said. "All I've personally heard is that she's eccentric, a pathetic battler, and she seems to scorn talking the other Gym Leaders as much as His Majesty."

"And let me guess," Ash said. "She has some sort of special rule that she'll abuse that will make beating her pretty much impossible?"

"Her special rule is that if you want to fight her," Duke Hamnet said. "She can choose to face you either in a Pokemon Battle or in a Pokemon Contest. And she is a terrific Trainer at Pokemon Contests."

"Oh," Ash said. He had, once in a blue moon, tried his hands at Pokemon Contests, but he hadn't gotten very far. "Ah- that's going to be a problem."

"Pokemon Contests work a bit differently here in Galea," Gulliver said. "I think you told me 'bout them once, and there are some new things. No one really cares about them much besides from battling."

"True," Duke Hamnet said. "But I heard they originated in the same region that Vanessa rules long ago."

"So I'll need to start practicing for that," Ash said.

* * *

"So, James, tell me again, why have we been wandering around in the skies for the last four hours?" Jessie asked.

"Well then Jessie, we've lost sight of the twerp and his Pikachu for quite some time," James said. "And there are rumors on the street that he's somehow gone missing, which means of course that all of his other Pokemon are undefended and up for the grabbing."

"Meowth, that's right," Meowth said, cleaning his teeth with his claws as he spoke. "But what's up with all the radio equipment?"

"Oh, I was looking for some clues," James said while wearing a Sherlock Holmes getup and taking a puff from a fake pipe. "And apparently a Team Rocket satellite interrupted a broadcast from Professor Sycamore. The admin in charge dismissed it as being useless-"

"Of course they did," Jessie snorted. "No one but idiots are sent into that division."

"-But I went combing through them for some more intel and noticed something… very interesting," James said. He then played the radio conversations.

"It looks like they're talking about some magical place?" Jessie asked.

"Galea," James said. "And that is of course, where it sparked my imagination. Think for yourselves, Team Rocket is known throughout the world, but not in this land. We could establish a new base… and a whole new region to plunder!"

"It sounds like crackpot to me though," Meowth said. "And why exactly did they send out a nursery rhyme in the first place?"

"I did manage to deduce that it could be a trick," James said. "But then I realized that a personality as renowned as Professor Sycamore couldn't possibly be making something that big up. And so, I managed to get the records on the Lumiose City Gym and its blueprints, which is where they were broadcasting initially. All we have to do is sneak in, and then plant a bug plus maybe snoop around to see what we can find. Then we can get back to stealing Ash's Pokemon."

"Why not keep intercepting what they do using our satellites?" Jessie asked.

"Well, Clemont seems to have done something with the Gym's wiring lately and it's messing with trying to track anything in the area," James explained. "however, sadly, this plan will involve-"

"Don't say it," Jessie muttered under her breath.

"-going under the sewage system!" James said.

"Oh no," Jessie groaned. She had just gotten her hair done.

* * *

"So, Clemont, are you sure that it should work better this time?" Professor Sycamore asked.

"Sure, Professor," Clemont said. "I talked with Bill from Kanto and Lanette from Hoenn, this next machine combines the same technology we used to send those messages and the Pokeball matter-to-energy conversion technology. I just might maybe be able to send something there. I want to try something like a rock first, but the big problem is that we'll have no clue if what we sent ended up there or on the dark side of the moon."

"So, it's still like a one-way window?" Sycamore asked.

"Pretty much," Clemont answered. "But it took a _lot_ of time to get the whole thing to work, Professor, and I had to pretty much reroute half the Gym's circuitry. It means half of my stuff isn't working too…"

"Don't worry, this should only be a few days," Sycamore said.

"But the problem is, we haven't, in any way, gotten any closer to figuring a way to get Ash out of this place," Clemont said.

"One step at a time, Clemont. One step at a time."

 **A/N: Thank you for all of your reviews last time.**

 **First up, as you can see, Ash doesn't have a Water Pokemon. I'm okay with importing his Greninja for now, but I should point out that I won't be doing his Charizard or Sceptile just yet. Thing is that a part of this was to be a challenge, and if Ash suddenly had all his strongest Pokemon (Charizard took on an Articuno once) it would kind of take that away. But... that might change as his battles get tougher.**

 **Secondly, I should just say that I did not think of Vanessa's special rule just so that I could get someone who was good at Contests in Galea for convenience to the plot. While thinking up of special rules for the Gym Leaders, I just knew that one had to be that you'd have to play a Contest against them. After all, they don't get much importance in the video games.**

 **Before saying who's going to come to Galea, I should probably point out DaniJIE mentioned romance wasn't necessary to this story, and I do kind of agree. I mean, it wouldn't be bad to have a bit of romance and I wouldn't mind writing some, but the main focus of the story will still be on Ash Ketchum and the Gym Leaders.**

 **Brock seemed like a natural choice simply because he's almost always there for Ash. With Vanessa, it does seem to be good that someone should come in who knows a bit about Contests. Dawn and May I decided against since they seem to pair better with other characters and I just kind of didn't really want to write them in.**

 **Now, problem with Serena is that mainly I have very little idea on how I would write her as I haven't seen the anime much past Diamond and Pearl. Reason for Serena is that while she isn't the only one with affection for Ash (as DaniJIE astutely pointed that out, but those other characters like Angie aren't all that memorable as they were only there for one episode) and she's been there for a season.**

 **As for Misty, yeah, the original trio was great, but from what I understand among everyone it seems to be Serena who would care the most (being Ash's childhood friend, and yes, while their feelings are slightly one-sided, that's probably all we can expect from Ash anyway) and would probably be searching frantically. The others seem to have mostly moved on with their lives and gone on their separate paths. Though I should note that I don't really feel that much one way or another about shippings, and as I've mentioned before, while there might be some changes depending on who the character I bring in is, it won't change the basic underlying story or how the plot commences very much.**

 **Sorry that this chapter was a bit short, I wanted to be sure about who I was bringing in order to write the next one. To answer Skitty4 (thanks for all those reviews by the way) Ash's friends are going to be coming in pretty soon... like next chapter to be exact.**

 **As such, I'd think it would be cool if you guys would vote between Serena and Misty on reviews.**

 **And finally, thanks Julie Togepi, DaniJIE, and Skitty4 for all your reviews!**


	40. VS Wade IV

**A/N: First of all, thank you guys for your input. I got quite some suggestions regarding who to bring in, and in the end, I've decided on Misty, particularly because I quite literally know nothing of X,Y, & Z and the more I tried to look it up the more lost I felt and I can't divert time to try and watch the whole series... so yeah. As such, if you were hoping for Serena, you were probably hoping for a Serena that was canon, and I would do a terrible job with that.  
**

 **Thanks DaniJIE, Great, and Julie Togepi for those reviews and also those who messaged me with inputs. As for what the common person's life is like in Galea, I have to admit that I do concentrate on Gym Leaders and the Elite Four a bit too much who are more like nobles and kings rather than the normal person, because in the end this is kind of a story about nobles and kings, but I'll look into getting some view into what the normal people of Galea feel like.**

"I think we're almost done here Professor," Clemont said. "Just a few more days and maybe we can send something bigger, like a rock."

"Great job-" Professor Sycamore got out before he was interrupted by the gym's PA.

"Hey brother! There are people here to see you!" a voice chimed.

"Thanks, Bonnie, but if they're challengers tell them that the Gym's closed for now," Clemont said.

"No, they say they're here to meet you and Professor Sycamore," Bonnie replied. "I have their names, Brock and Misty."

"Oh, send them up then," Clemont said.

The elevator beeped as the door opened.

"Wow, this place is a mess," Misty said before realizing how that sounded and apologizing.

"Oh no, it's okay," Clemont said. "I've just gotten really into this whole project, y'know, so it's kind of hard to remember to clean up."

"So, you're Clemont, nice to meet you," Misty said. "And you too, Professor Sycamore."

"Ah yes, I've heard a bit about you," Professor Sycamore said. "You're Ash's friend who was a coordinator, no?"

"Uh, no, I'm a gym leader," Misty said. "Of the Cerulean City Gym." She sighed, for some reason when she told people that she had traveled with Ash, they _all_ assumed that she was a coordinator.

"Nice to meet you Professor," Brock said and shook hands with Professor Sycamore, thereby making the whole situation a little less awkward. "We're here from Professor Oak. See, he wanted us to check up on you."

"Oh, no doubt that old chap is wondering just how far I've gotten," Professor Sycamore said.

"Not… exactly," Brock said. Truth be told, Professor Oak still didn't believe anything about Galea's existence and was still sure that Professor Sycamore's crackpot idea wasn't going to amount to anything. He had actually gotten worried that Professor Sycamore might have taken things to far and may have gotten himself injured or something, so he had sent the two of them.

"Well, he could've just called," Professor Sycamore said. "No need for the two of you to walk all the way over here, plus, I'm sure that being a gym leader, you must be pretty busy, no?"

"Uh, actually I'm on a break," Mist said. "I took it to help look for Ash."

When Misty had been told that Ash Ketchum had gone missing, her first reaction was to blow it off. Ash had gone missing quite a few many times, and she had problems of her own to handle, but as time went by without any further news, she had gotten worried and had decided to join the hunt as well.

"And we couldn't call," Brock said. "For some reason, all calls made to Lumiose City are getting dropped."

"Oh, I'm sorry, that's probably my fault," Clemont said. "I've had to make some changes to the gym's wirings in order to power this device. I was pretty lucky the whole gym acts as a transmission tower though."

"Ah, that explains it," Brock said, though in reality he didn't quite get anything of what Clemont had said.

"Well, then, anything I can get you to drink?" Clemont asked. "Tea? Coffee?"

"Uh, no thanks, but are you guys doing some sort of experiment?" Misty asked. "Why are you wearing those weird coats?"

Both Clemont and Professor Sycamore had coats that seemed to be made out of tin foil.

"Oh, this is just a safety precaution," Clemont said. "They're supposed to block A-waves or at least lessen their effects in the doses we use in the machine."

"What?" Brock asked.

"Oh, this is a whole long story," Professor Sycamore said. "Wait- 'whole long story' doesn't exactly sound right, but what does it matter? Anyway, you do know about Galea, right?"

"Uh, Professor Oak just kind of described it as 'Cuckooland' and left it at that," Brock said sheepishly.

"Well, I think that he isn't fully convinced then yet," Professor Sycamroe said. He gave them a brief but concise summary of all their activities regarding Galea up to the point, which lasted about twenty minutes.

"That's a whole lot to take in," Brock said, scratching his chin. "But knowing Ash, it seems like the sort of thing that he'd get himself into."

"Yeah," Misty said. "If there's anything in the world that's crazy or important or just downright weird, Ash probably has his nose in it." Professor Sycamore chuckled.

"So, Professor Sycamore, you haven't had much success, right, in these things? And there's nothing new that you've found?" Brock asked.

"Well, I did manage to find something else about Galea lately, so I suppose you could tell Professor Oak about that," Professor Scyamore said. "In trying to research about Galea, I went back into the very annals of Pokemon history, and managed to find this stone tablet near Mt. Coronet that dates back several thousand years. Now, it had some ruins on it that were part of a language so old that I couldn't even find a name for it."

Clemont pushed in some buttons to show a hologram of the tablet.

"But, as we all know, all languages are purportedly have said to have descended from one another," Professor Sycamore said. "And so, I made a database with every language currently present in history and then sent it to several of my archaeologist friends. Following that, we made a cross-reference using the oldest languages only and ended up with a dead end, so then we looked for some similarity with another language and we ended up getting nowhere too. After that, we just tried seeing if the computer could try matching the symbols randomly to words, but that ended up with a bunch of gibberish and no success as well so then once of my aides noticed that one of the symbols looked like a Pokemon- and she was right."

Professor Sycamore manipulated the hologram using his fingers and focused on a single rune. "This- what looks like a white horse seemed to actually be the Pokemon Arceus. Using that as our base, we tried matching the other symbols to plants and Pokemon as best as we could, and that was when I realized that these showed Kyogre and Groundon as well. From that, we managed to piece together the whole thing."

"Wow Professor, I mean, I didn't really get all that you did," Brock said. "But it does sound like you had to do a lot of work and put in a few hours to get it done. Why do all that if you weren't sure that it was related to Galea? I mean, you found it on Mt. Coronet, right?"

"Ah, thanks to A-waves and some other factors, but I'll get to that in a minute," Professor Sycamore said. "I think you should see the translation first."

The hologram changed to show a large wad of scrolling text that read:

 _THE LORD ARCEUS IN HIS WISDOM CREATED THE UNIVERSE WITH HIS THOUSAND ARMS. HE BORE TWO SONS, DIALGA AND PALKIA WHO WERE LEFT TO RULE THE UNIVERSE AS HE TURNED TO ANCIENT SLUMBER. HIS DAUGHTER, GIRATINA, FLED TO THE SHADOWS._

 _ONE DAY, AS THE EARTH CAME TO FRUITION THE LORD ARCEUS' GAZE AS HE WOKE CAME UPON A MASS OF LAND HOME TO A PRIMITIVE RACE OF HUMANS. THE LAND WAS DESOLATE AND INHOSPITABLE, AND THE PEOPLE THEREIN PITIFUL AND UNAWARE OF THE FINER ASPECTS OF CIVILIZATION._

 _ON THE FIRST DAY, THE LORD ARCEUS SLEPT AND REGAINED HIS ENERGY TO DO WHAT WAS TO BE DONE NEXT._

 _ON THE SECOND DAY, THE LORD ARCEUS TAUGHT THE PEOPLE, WHO HAD BECOME LIKE HIS CHILDREN, HOW TO MAKE ARMS TO HUNT AND PLOWS TO TILL THE EARTH, AS WELL AS HOW TO FASHION APRICORNS TO CONTAIN MYTHICAL CREATURES OF POWER._

 _ON THE THIRD DAY, THE LORD ARCEUS TAUGHT HIS CHILDREN HOW TO MINE THE EARTH FOR GEMS AND MINERALS, AND HOW TO GATHER PLANTS AND TO TEND TO HERDS SO THAT THEY MAY HAVE EVEN MORE TO EAT._

 _ON THE FOURTH DAY, THE LORD ARCEUS CAME UPON A PATCH OF EARTH THAT HAD BEEN SCORCHED DRY BY GROUNDON. ARCEUS THEN BEGAN TO SING, AND FROM THAT SONG THE EARTH RECOVERED AND GRASS AND FERTILE SOIL CAME ALONG WITH IT. AND SO HIS CHILDREN REJOICED, FOR THEY COULD NOW FARM._

 _ON THE FIFTH DAY, KYOGRE SENT A HUGE STORM THAT NEARLY FLOODED THE LAND. THE LORD ARCEUS HOWLED IN RAGE AND TAMED THE SEA SO THAT HIS CHILDREN COULD SAIL UPON IT WITH EASE._

 _ON THE SIXTY DAY, WEARY OF WORK, THE LORD ARCEUS INSTEAD TAUGHT HIS CHILDREN TO DANCE AND PLAY, AND MADE HUGE DISPLAYS OF HIS POWER THAT INSPIRED WONDER AND AWE IN EVERYONE._

 _ON THE SEVENTH DAY, THE UNGRATEFUL MEN AND WOMEN GREW ENVIOUS OF ARCEUS AND HIS POWER AND MAGNIFICENCE. FILLED WITH ENVY AND RESENTMENT, THEY ATTEMPTED TO STRIKE THE LORD ARCEUS. THE LORD ARCEUS PREFERRED TO FLEE RATHER THAN FIGHT HIS OWN CHILDREN._

 _ON THE EIGHT DAY, THE LORD ARCEUS REACHED AN ISLAND TO THE NORTH. THE PEOPLE CALMED DOWN AND WERE FILLED WITH SORROW FOR WHAT THEY HAD DONE, AND ON THE EIGHTH AND FINAL DAY, THE LORD ARCEUS GAVE THE PEOPLE A CHOICE._

 _HIS CHILDREN HAVING CHOSEN, THE LORD ARCEUS MOVED ACROSS THE SEA AND TOWARDS ANOTHER FARAWAY LAND. US, DEVOTED TO HIM, MOVED TO JOIN HIM AS THE OTHERS STAYED._

"Well, that was something," Brock said as the text ended. "Is there any more?"

"No," Professor Sycamore said. "And the thing is, of course, that I'm still kind of trying to piece together what it all means. But before that, I think I should explain what A-waves are, or rather, let Clemont explain, since he seems to be the expert on this thing."

"Well, 'expert' is kind of stretching it," Clemont said. "But anyway, you two do know about sound waves, right, and electromagnetic waves like light and radio waves, right? Well, it turns out that these things are just a tiny spectrum of the kinds of signals that the universe gives out to us. One of the peculiar ones that I just recently began to pick up are A-waves, a type of well, not exactly energy but sort of temporal-spatial-matter-energy if that makes sense somehow. I found it especially when Arceus had recently appeared, and I thought they were coming from him, so that's why I called them A-waves. So, naturally I tried building a device to measure them, and interestingly enough, there was a spike just around where Ash had disappeared off the coast of Kanto. There are also sustained large levels near Mt. Coronet, where he was apparently. And remember the pilot who disappeared for some time in a freak storm? Well, the military still had the plane preserved in a museum and I found a small increase in A-waves from there as well."

"So, what exactly are they?" Brock asked. He found it difficult to wrap his head around what was being said.

"A-waves are the song of the creator of the universe himself," Professor Sycamore said dramatically.

"Put it a bit quite simply, they're how Arceus manages to do things. Like, say, you want to light up a room, you can turn a light bulb on, but what's really illuminating the place isn't the light bulb itself, but rather the light waves, right? In the same way, I mean, it is said that Arceus made the universe using 'his thousand arms' and all, but I think it is more likely that he thought what he wanted to do and released A-waves. So where you find A-waves, that's where you find where Arceus was. And since he apparently spent a lot of time in Galea, I'm guessing that the tablet was from Galea too."

"And the stone tablet wasn't the only thing that I had found," Professor Sycamore said. "The tablet was buried in a room containing other things, including several tombs. Now, I think we should go back to the message on the tablet. I think one thing that really strikes out is that how Arceus' visit is told in eight days. The number eight seems to have a special significance for the people of Galea. Their territory is divided into eight sections, and from what I gather, these territories seem to be entirely different countries in an aspect, as they have different customs as well as ways of life to an extent, despite extensive intermingling. I think when the tale refers to eight days, it means that Arceus turned the place into eight regions as he visited each of them one at a time. Not to mention eight 'gems of power' are mentioned in places. But what it doesn't make clear is the 'choice' apparently offered to the people on the eighth day, or what they chose."

"We think that after all this happened," Clemont said, "Arceus went back to Mt. Coronet in Sinnoh from where he had woken up, and some of the people decided to follow him rather than stay. So, the tombs there are of people who decided to go back and wait for Arceus. The only way to tell for sure though is if we sequenced their DNA and we kind of don't wanna do that since, uh, well…"

"It would involve exhuming the bodies," Professor Sycamore said. "And we don't quite want to disturb the graves of anyone, plus, Sinnoh's laws are strictly against these kinds of things. It could be years before we're given permission."

"Oh," Misty said. "Well, then what're you trying to do next?"

"We're going to see if we can get a rock or something of that size into Galea," Professor Sycamore said. "For some reason though, we can't seem to be able to get stuff _out_ of Galea. It's sort of like a one-way window for everything."

"But you've gotta say, it must have taken a lot of guts for those people to move from their homes to some land they'd never even heard of just to follow Arceus," Brock said.

"Ah yes, they seem to have been one of the few very religious people in our world," Professor Sycamore said. "I can't find a parallel in modern times, unless you count those people who worship the Helix Fossil."

Meanwhile, under the city, Team Rocket was rowing a small boat through the gutters. Needless to say, they were all wearing gas masks and biohazard suits.

"It still somehow stinks in here," Jessie said.

"Well then, what do you want _me_ to do about it?" James asked.

"Maybe pick a better route next time!" Jessie said. "Right, Meowth?"

Meowth wasn't responding. His nose was far more sensitive than a human's, and the suit hadn't been built to his proportions exactly and let in some air. He had fainted from the smell.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally found themselves beneath the Lumiose City Gym.

"Just follow me," James motioned as Jessie carried Meowth up a flight of stairs that was illuminated by a flashlight that James had.

Simultaneously, Clemont had decided to check out if the circuitry in his machine was working. You know, he wasn't going to actually use it, but he did want to make sure there weren't any loose connections with what now amounted to miles of circuitry.

There weren't any, but unknown to him, James, while climbing a few steps towards the gym's basement, tripped and reached for something, anything, that would stop his fall. It was a natural reflex, really, and he caught a wire and broke it, with him holding one end.

Clemont would later on spend days trying to figure out what had happened. As it was, whatever did occur happened nearly instantaneously.

A huge wave of energy spread across the machine, and below, it enveloped Jessie, James, Meowth, and a lone Trubbish that had the misfortune of being too close to the wiring. In a few microseconds, the wave traveled upstairs and enveloped Brock and Misty, with only Sycamore and Clemont being spared kudos to their suits, before it traveled along an antenna and shot them towards the barrier than separated Galea from the world.

After that, the machine that Clemont had so painstakingly developed overheated and melted before sending a blast that shattered the windows and burned their present records as well as wiping off most of their data.

Not to mention the power went off in Lumiose City for twenty-five city blocks.

* * *

Wade watched the waves gently rock back and forth. It always had a calming effect on him, which he really needed right now.

He had tried calling Selena, but she wasn't responding to anything. So no help figuring out what the loophole was from her.

He knew that Ash had to be stopped, but the only thing was how? How could he possibly force Ash to attack him? He had nothing that Ash would want, and he couldn't exactly bribe him to stop, could he?

Wade felt helpless, a rare first in all of his years. How could he, a Gym Leader as powerful as a Gyarados be reduced to a state as helpless as that of a Magikarp?

What did he have? What could he do to get Ash to battle him?

Unknown to him, near the coast of Galea, several figures suddenly appeared in the ocean having been carried there from Kalos.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! And do please review if you liked!**


	41. VS Wade V

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and sorry for the delay in uploading. Things got in the way. Crestillia, I didn't know about Greninja until I did a Bulbapedia search, and I'll include him and his powers. Thanks Guest, and Great, that'll be explained later. Johnny Spectre, I'm guessing Armourshipping is more popular anyway with Ash getting a kiss, but I'll stick with what I know how to write.  
**

Clemont's machine disassembled its unfortunate test subjects molecule by molecule before transmitting them as energy towards Galea.

It was hardly more complex than a standard Pokeball transfer. Except for the fact that trying to get through Galea's barrier was the molecular equivalent of a human running into a brick wall.

With all said in done, it was quite a miracle that they emerged on the other side completely intact. Or rather, _almost_ completely intact. Jessie lost two of her fingernails, Misty one-twelfth of her liver, James found himself with a haircut, and Brock had lost about two gigabytes worth of memories (though they were mostly of girls rejecting him, so this, in a sense, can be said to be beneficial).

Jessie and James got the better end of the deal and ended up on a land mass. The Trubbish and Meowth were also deposited along with them, and while Meowth joined up with his criminals in arms, the Trubbish would find a piece of driftwood, go to the mainland, and then live its days happily ever after when it found a group of Trubbish in Thomdolt's domain.

Brock and Misty weren't so lucky. They were deposited right at the edge of the border that separated Galea from the rest of the world, and twenty feet beneath the ocean's surface to boot.

That wasn't much of a problem for Misty, who had begun swimming before she could walk. While she was fully capable of surfacing by herself, she knew that her Starmie would like an opportunity to be in the water.

As she surfaced, the air was obscured by a thick fog. She had almost forgot about Brock until he shouted out, "Misty! Are you there?"

"Yes!" Misty shouted back. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I had Ash's Greninja with me," Brock said. "Apparently it couldn't just wait to find Ash when it noticed that he was gone."

"Good idea," Misty said. "But where are you?"

"I don't know," Brock said. "I can't see at all. You could say… that it's too _misty_."

Misty face-palmed. "This is worse than that frying pan joke. Wait, I'll just think of something."

A strong wind came and began thinning out the mist. Misty noticed Brock, who was on Greninja and only a few feet away from her.

"Thank the gods…" Misty said. "Just where are-" She was cut off mid-sentence as she took a good look around her.

In her man years, while she had seen a whole lot of weird things, nothing, save for maybe that illusion that the Unknown had made once, rivaled this.

The place was normal enough with a peaceful ocean and lazy clouds floating above, but everything just somehow warped like the sides of a fishbowl and the sky and the sea seemed to meet . Beyond that, she couldn't see anything.

Both Brock and Misty knew that what they were looking at was quite literally physically impossible, but it was also right there in front of them.

Though they didn't know it, what they were looking at was the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world.

Misty extended her hand instinctively towards what she saw, but she was never able to touch the end. Instead, her arm turned around even though she wanted to take it forward and it ended up with her hand back at her face.

"What…" Misty said.

"Hey Misty," Brock said, but he was completely ignored as Misty plunged into the water only to find something similar.

"Brock, there's no way out of here," Misty said. "What're we going to do?"

"Well, let's think about immediate things first," Brock said. Jokes aside, he was the one who was best at remaining calm in a given situation. "We need food, and I don't think you had any on you?"

Misty shook her head.

"And all I have is a loaf of bread," Brock said. "See, whatever this barrier is, and since we have a barrier I'm guessing we're in Galea, extends right here and all over the horizon as far as I can see, but behind us the path is clear. So let's head over in that direction. There should be land."

* * *

Jenkins was unsure of how to proceed. It was difficult enough to try and talk to his mistress when he had something positive to say, and the news for now was not in any way good.

And Selena had never been one to restrain from shooting the messenger.

She was currently enjoying a cup of tea in the gardens reserved for her, a rather unusual pastime that she had recently acquired. There were several butlers and maids scattered about, and the garden was as pristine as usual, but…

"So, what news do you have?" came the icy voice from Selena.

"Um, well, regarding Alan Lazar, Your Excellency, it appears that he was a traitor all along and has defected to Wade," Jenkins spoke. "It would also seem that he was behind hacking our systems and aiding Ash Ketchum in order to-"

He was interrupted by Selena, who had stopped him by raising a pinky.

Jenkins fidgeted while Selena finished her tea, and then said, "I already know of Mr. Lazar's defection. I can assure you however, that he is not the traitor that we are looking for. Alan Lazar would never help Ash Ketchum. He knows what would happen."

Jenkins was flabbergasted. "But then- why would he defect in the first place? And who else could have possibly hacked into our systems, unless they were someone of very high rank?"

"That is for you to find out," Selena said. "And do not fail me in that regard. As for why Mr. Lazar defected, it concerns a topic that I suppose I must divulge. I intend to attack His Majesty. Apparently Mr. Lazar got cold feet at this plan and chose to hide with Wade." She then glared at Jenkins. "And what of you? Where exactly do _your_ loyalties lie?"

"Well- if you intend to attack His Majesty, Your Excellency, I would, um, obey you as a Gym Leader's vassal should," Jenkins said.

"Good," Selena said. "In that case you are dis-"

"That is not all, madam," Jenkins said which gave him a glare from Selena. When she interrupted him, it was fine, but him interrupting _her_? That was insubordination. "There is another set of events that may pique your curiosity. As you know, we have a branch at our research team to monitor the barrier's properties, and, well, it was broken."

"What?" Selena asked.

"We don't know how or why, but something happened which smashed through the barrier today earlier in the morning," Jenkins said. "The scientists are still trying to figure out what happened, but something could have or not have gotten through. The barrier's regenerative properties meant that it sealed itself almost immediately though."

Selena snarled, and Jenkins nearly jumped back. "This can only mean that the barrier is weakening… all the more reason for me to take matters into my own hands. Begin making preparations to lay siege to His Majesty's territory!"

"Yes, um, but, uh, Lord Wade has requested help regarding Ash Ketchum," Jenkins said.

"Let him continue requesting," Selena said. "Truth be told, there is little we can do now. Wade is only slightly more powerful that Linnea was, and Vanessa's requirement that she be defeated in a Pokemon Contest can only protect her for so long."

"Only one thing, uh, we're not allowed to attack His Majesty, so… how?" Jenkins asked. Even the lowliest peasant knew that the Badges forbade warfare between the Gym Leaders, and he was bound to be bombarded with questions from his subordinates.

"Don't poke your nose where it doesn't belong," Selena said simply and dismissed him.

* * *

"Brock, it's been hours and we still haven't seen any land," Misty said.

"Uh, Misty, I think you're seriously overreacting," Brock said. "It's hardly been fifteen minutes. And see? We've seen Wingulls in the sky, and I know one of them pooped on you, but we know that Wingulls can't fly very far, so there must be land somewhere nearby."

"Oh sure," Misty said.

As it turned out, they didn't find land, but rather what looked like a small shack. There was a single wooden house, and surrounding it was a wooden pier that flowed and jostled along with the ocean's tides.

"I think it's some sort of research base or something," Brock said. "There should be someone inside."

As it turned out, there wasn't anyone inside. The door was locked, but what was inside was visible from the windows.

"Do you think they'll mind if we break in?" Misty asked.

"Um, Misty, people in general do tend to mind when you break into places where-" Brock said before he was cut off as Misty's Starmie knocked the door down. "Well, that's that."

"Oh come on Brock," Misty said. "How many times have we broken into places we shouldn't have been before? Way more than I can count, if I remember. And since when have we gotten in trouble for it?"

The inside of the cabin had six beds, a small kitchen with a stove, and lots and lots of papers scattered about.

"Huh, I wonder what they say," Brock said. "This one's on 'Analysis of the Sea Current Eddies Due to the Barrier' and another one is, okay, I'm already bored."

"That's a very strange name for a paper," Misty said.

"No, I'm just actually bored," Brock said. "All of these are just maps, and they don't show any large land masses nearby except one named Aegis Island."

"Anything to eat?" Misty asked.

"There's no fridge here, oddly enough," Brock said. "But did Galea even have fridges? Were you paying attention to what Professor Sycamore said about the place, because I kind of dozed off in the middle there…"

"I don't know, he just talked about its ancient history, but this sort of stuff doesn't seem that important now, right? I mean, there was nothing about modern Galea. It's kind of like judging Kanto from an old samurai movie, and there is electricity here to run the lights, even though there's no fridge, so it can't be too backward, right?" Misty said.

"I guess you have a point," Brock said. "And I did manage to find some food, but all of it's dry. Mostly crackers, and um, some cake too for some reason? And biscuits. You know, stuff that doesn't go bad."

"Do you think they'll mind too much if we took some?" Misty asked, already having taken a bite out of a cookie. "This tastes terrible!" She took another bite anyway.

Once they were done eating, Brock said, "I call top bunk!"

"Brock, there are six beds here meaning there are six top bunks," Misty said.

"Then I want the one closest to the window!" Brock said.

Misty sighed. "You're going to sleep already?" She looked outside. "I'm guessing it's probably just three p.m. here."

"Yeah, I think I'll crash, it's been a long day," Brock said.

Misty on the other hand decided to go through the papers, but like Brock had said, they were extremely boring and she dozed off in her chair.

Almost immediately later, or so it seemed, she was awakened by someone saying, " Turner! Ernie! Who broke this door?"

That made her get up and immediately wake up Brock. Brock, who had been mumbling in his sleep about Nurse Joy had needed a tight slap before he regained consciousness.

As the door, after being knocked down, had been hastily propped up and had now been knocked down again to let in three people dressed in uniforms that resembled a nutcracker's, except that their coats with dark blue and one of them, a women with silky black hair also had small crowns on her shoulders and had an actual sword attached to her hip.

She didn't see Brock and Misty at first, and Misty was silently thankful that Brock hadn't tried to immediately propose to her.

"Oi! Captain! Someone's taken some of the food!" one of the others said.

"Right, Ernie, but where are the thie-" the person who seemed to be the captain saw Brock and Misty.

"Well, hello," Brock said.

The three people stared at the two of them.

"Um… who are you?" the captain asked.

"Oh, we just sort of got stranded and ended up here," Misty said. "We needed someplace to stay and something to eat."

"So… you went ahead and broke into someone's place and stole the food there?"

"In our defense, that's actually social protocol where we come from," Brock said. "I mean, we were lost and stranded in the middle of the ocean you see…"

"Okay," the captain said. "I don't know who you two are and I don't really care. I have work to do, and I'm willing to let this theft slide if that's all you took."

"Right, thanks," Misty said. "But what's with the uniforms?"

"This?" one of the guards asked. "It's the common standard uniform for the Marine Corps serving under Lord Wade, the Fifth Gym Leader. Just who are you people?"

"And for that matter, what is it with _your_ clothes?" the captain asked.

"Oh, these are common things in Kanto," Brock blurted out.

"Kanto… you mean _the_ Kanto? Beyond the sea?" the captain asked. "Don't be ridiculous here, the barrier isolating Galea means that no one can cross over."

"Oh, you mean that weird wall thing that I couldn't get past?" Misty asked. "What is up with that."

"Um… Captain Rodgers?" one of the guards said. "Weren't we investigating the barrier breaking down."

"Oh right," Captain Rodgers said as her face flitted through a vast array of emotions quickly. "Wait- so are you truly um, Kantonese- is that the right term, yes, Kantonese?"

"Yes," Brock said. "We're not sure exactly sure how we got here."

"Only one other person ended up in Galea from outside up till date," Captain Rodgers said. After a pause, she added, "Alright then! I suppose we'll take you to meet Lord Wade, who can then decide what to do with you."

"Yes, take us to your leader, that's a good idea," Brock said.

"Are you sure?" Misty whispered to Brock. She hadn't liked the stories she had heard about the Gym Leaders of Galea from what Professor Sycamore had said.

Brock didn't seem to have heard. "Yes, that's fine with us. Also, you mentioned that someone else had come here."

"Yes," Captain Rodgers said darkly. "One other."

"Well, one of our friends might of landed here," Brock said. "His name was Ash Ketchum. I don't suppose you've-"

Brock was cut off Captain Rodger's face shifted from one mildly bemused to fierce antagonism which was mirrored in her companions. Her hand clapped to her sword.

"What?" Brock asked.

"Ash Ketchum? The barbarian who is the sworn enemy of Lord Wade?" Captain Rodgers asked. "I see, you're invaders too. Get them!"

They released their Pokemon, three Floatzels.

Defeating them wasn't very hard, as while they were strong, they weren't much more powerful than an average challenger a Gym Leader had to face and so they beat a hasty retreat towards a boat they had brought. Brock and Misty didn't bother chasing them.

"That was weird," Brock said.

"You said it," Misty added. "That was stranger than Team Rocket."

Captain Rodgers, once she was certain that they were at a safe distance away immediately sent a message to Wade, knowing that he would know what to do.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked.**


	42. VS Wade VI

Ash held a copy of the rules to contests in Galea in one hand, and a fruit smoothie in the other hand. The rulebook was heftier than anything he had ever read; come to think of it, he couldn't exactly remember the last time he had read a book. Well, that was what happened when you left your home at only ten years old.

He was currently in a spot in the gardens in the palace that used to belong to Linnea, and the place was, he had to admit, amazing. Erika would've probably given her front teeth to have a garden like this.

It was almost a world of its own, sealed off from the rest of the palace by numerous screens and wooden walls. Lotad and Lombre swam lazily in the nearby pond while being surrounded by water lilies and pink lotuses. Instead of grass, the floor was covered in a type of moss that felt spongy and slightly elastic like a natural trampoline. Grass Pokemon wandered about tending to the plants and repairing the moss in areas where it had been torn. Thankfully, it was not as hot as a greenhouse and a pleasantly cool breeze wafted about as Ash's Pokemon relaxed near him. To complete this wonderful picture, there had been a mini-buffet laid out for Ash, from where he had gotten the fruit smoothie.

It would be a bit of exaggeration to say that Ash and his Pokemon were the only inhabitants as there were servants present at every six feet in case Ash needed something.

Ash tired not to notice them, but then he wondered whether not noticing them made him a snob.

Between the fruit smoothie and the book, he'd go with the smoothie any day even though he knew deep down that he really needed to master how to deal with contests in Galea. Otherwise, there was no way that he would get past Vanessa.

"Um, Sir Ash," one of the maids said, "there appears to be a visitor for you and she's very insist-"

She was pushed aside and a old woman whom Ash recognized as Celera walked in.

"It's okay, I know her, you can put your weapons away," Ash said quickly to the servants in the garden.

"Well boy, tell me, I come all the way out here to see you and this is the kind of reception I get?" Celera asked.

"Well, no one's here who's seen you besides me, so…" Ash trailed off. "We need to get you a pass or badge or something. You look like you've just gotten back from a long trip- you can have some of what's on the table if you want."

"Well, you're right about that," Celera said as she took a huge gulp of water. "Wow, that feels good. So, after you went and bopped off Freyja I went and got a health check-up done. Apparently I had a protozoal infection but they took care of that and after a few hours with a Chansey and a hot spring I felt better than ever."

"That's good to know," Ash said.

"PIka pi!" Pikachu said as he smiled and jumped into Celera's lap. Ash's other Pokemon seemed to prefer to watch from a distance, but Arcanine came and sniffed her shoes.

"I think you've gained some weight," Celera said to the Pikachu.

"Yeah, they've been gorging on nothing but the best stuff chefs can make," Ash said.

"Right," Celera said as she took a bite out of a cookie. "Okay- too sweet though. Anyway, I do have you to thank for the recovery. Thanks for paying for all of it."

"Wait- we paid for all of it?" Ash asked.

"Yes," Celera said. "Yes, you were the one who signed the form saying that- wait a moment-" her eyes narrowed "-have you started signing things without reading them, Ash Ketchum?"

Ash suddenly felt smaller. It was as if his mom had caught him doing something bad… which wasn't very often as Ash was almost never around. "Uh, I do read them. I just might occasionally, uh, skim a few lines or so." Pikachu looked at him disbelievingly. Celera didn't seem to buy it either. Truth was that Ash almost never read anything other than the headings. The forms could occasionally be several hundred pages long and flooded with archaic words that he didn't understand.

"Skim them? Ash, don't you know about the story of Gym Leader Toto?" Celera asked.

"Never heard of him," Ash said.

"He had begun signing away things without looking at them since he trusted his ministers, but one of them had an altercation with another family and managed to get Toto's signed approval for their execution!" Celera said. "Now, none of your ministers seem to be like that- but it would be wise of you to start paying attention to what you sign." She took another glass of water. Pikachu was shaking his head.

"So, where were you?' Ash asked.

"Oh that, I got bored being at the spa after about say- um, I guess it was two days? I then realized that I had to do something to try and take the Gym Leaders down, but you were heading off to tackle Linnea, so I thought that it would be the perfect time to go and check up on some contacts I had in Constantinapole – figuring that most of Selena's eyes would be focused on Linnea and not on her own territory. Turns out I was wrong though, but in Vanessa's territory I joined up with a group of traveling circus performers before I managed to get to the border. Trying to get across was a bit tough but after a week I found some smugglers willing to take someone across for a fee."

"That's sounds risky," Ash said. "And why didn't Selena seal off her border with her Badge?"

"Well, this entire operation has been 'risky,' plus the way I figure it, if I don't do something soon, I may not live long enough to reunite with Emily," Celera said.

"You don't have anyone else?" Ash asked. "No other family, I mean?"

"No," Celera said. "They're all dead."

"So you never married?" Ash asked.

"No, couldn't find the right man," Celera said. "Why? Do you know anyone?" she joked.

"No, no," Ash said. The only people he could think of in Celera's age group was Mr. Jennings, and maybe Professor Oak.

Celera sighed, and then turned to one of the servants, "Hey! I could use a coffee right about now. Add extra cream, but no sugar!"

The servant looked confused, as if unsure whether or not he should obey but trotted off anyway.

"Anyway what were you saying?" Celera asked. "Oh yeah, that barrier thing is really hard to put off with only one Badge, and that would mean that normal business and trade between Selena's and Vanessa's domain would stop. I don't think she could allow that given that Vanessa is probably the one carting food to them now and it isn't like she's in imminent danger of you invading. So, the smugglers took me past the border guards and tariffs, and I made my way to Constantinople. Wasn't easy- I tell you, since I didn't have any papers with me, and boy are the people in Selena's domain found of papers. She's begun digitizing a good fraction of the population's data, but I managed to find my contact. He well near fainted when he saw me- I'm guessing he didn't think I was still alive."

"So what'd you find out?" Ash asked.

"Oh, see, the thing is, he now works on monitoring the barrier between Galea and the rest of the known world for Selena. And, he managed to help me get into some very classified files," Celera said. "Anyway, long story short, I'm not here to talk about how I got them. And most of the information was useless anyway. Did you know that Selena is, based on my estimates, apparently at least _three hundred_ years old?"

"What?" Ash asked. The whole thing was even creepier given that he had thought she really looked good.

"I know right," Celera said. "She could be older, but I sure couldn't tell it. Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point is that I picked up a little something regarding the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world. You know, I was always wondering, since the eight Gym Badges made the barrier in the first place, now that you have three- or I guess four now, if you just wanted to go back, you could make a small hole in it and go back home."

"Yeah, I've talked about it though," Ash said. "Even Linnea had a small group of scientists who studied the barrier, and they said the whole thing was too risky. The barrier separating Galea is different from the one that Linnea made which I just cut a hole through. It involves time as well as space, and they said it was like we're living surrounded by a wall, like a really big one. Now, I can't go ahead and tear it down with only four Badges, but I could maybe dig a tunnel under a section. But then, I'm risking the wall collapsing on the tunnel. And that could be bad- they said that we could end up a thousand years in the future, or a thousand years in the past or maybe on the other side of the galaxy if it wasn't properly removed. Or, the whole thing might collapse around Galea and turn it into a huge black hole."

"Well, I have some good- no wait, I have bad news," Celera said. "Turns out you can't actually do that anyway because as it turns out, that while the Gym Leaders did make the majority of the barrier, the basic scaffolding- so you'd say to extend your wall metaphor- was made by the Elite Four Champion. If you want to get out, you'll need his help."

"Wait! But- isn't he dead? Along with the rest of the Elite Four?" Ash asked. "I mean, Fredrick said that they were alive, but I don't kind of believe him."

"Actually, he would have to be alive," Celera mused. "The barrier was made pretty strong, but it needs to be reinforced just like any structure- it can't last forever. It would need regular maintenance every five hundred years or so. In order for that to happen, they'd have to keep the Elite Four Champion alive."

"Or maybe they didn't think that far," Ash said. "Five hundred years is a pretty long time."

"I highly doubt that," Celera said. "I mean, they seem to have it all planned to last for seemingly forever, though nothing ever lasts that long. By the way, who's Frederick?"

Ash filled her in on the messenger he had got from His Majesty. Celera's coffee came in the meantime.

"Hmm," Celera said once Ash was done.

"So what I'm thinking is," Ash said. "Maybe that was true after all, and His Majesty did keep the Elite Four alive. Because, why hasn't the Elite Four Champion done anything yet? If he was alive, he would've gone and taken back Galea, right? But Fredrick said that the Champion is under His Majesty's thumb, so maybe His Majesty is keeping the Elite Four hostage to get the Champion to cooperate or something. I can't think of any other reason for His Majesty to keep them alive, I mean, all of the Gym Leaders we've seen have no problems killing as long as they think it's for a right cause, and I can't see why he'd let them live otherwise."

"That's assuming that the Champion would be stopped knowing that the Elite Four would be killed," Celera said. "Would he really care that much about them compared to stopping the Gym Leaders? And how would His Majesty figure out how to subdue the Elite Four, the best Trainers in Galea anyway?"

Ash shrugged. "I guess if I need all eight Badges it's going to be hard anyway. I mean, I can handle having four of them."

"Why? Celera asked.

"I've been getting headaches all the time and yesterday when I tried using them to fix it, I got a rash all around my-" Ash stopped right there as the rest of that sentence went into inappropriate territory. "They call it Badge Sickness."

"Oh," Celera said.

"Did Emily get it too?" Ash asked.

"No- she always said that only the weak-willed got it- sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's an idiopathic condition really," Celera said.

"What does that mean? That only stupid people get it?" Ash asked.

"No, it's idiopathic not idiotpathic- the last one's not even a word," Celera said. "It just means that we don't know what causes it and it varies from person to person usually. I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's probably you're too young and all- you know, how children have to take smaller doses of medicine and get side effects from them quicker, that's probably why you've been feeling down."

"Right," Ash said, not feeling much better.

"Come to think of it," Celera said. "I don't think anyone as young as you has ever held so many Badges- or at least not for longer than a few months. I wonder if there might be any side effects to you using them, like growth retardation, you know, since the Badges seem to keep the wearer eternally young. Imagine if you'd be stuck being a ten-year-old boy forever."

"I wouldn't want that to happen," Ash said. "That'd be terrible."

* * *

Lord Wade's favorite mode of transport across the seas was his Gyarados. It was large and capable of razing an entire village within a few minutes, in short, it was the perfect vehicle for someone of the rank of Gym Leader.

However, in certain situations, speed was more of the essence, which is why he had taken his Golduck instead.

He had been relaxing, trying to take his mind off of Ash Ketchum now that he reckoned there was nothing he could do about him when an urgent report came in saying that two people who appeared to be associates of Ash had come in… and that there appeared to have been a breach in the barrier although it had repaired itself rather quickly.

That meant that these were outsiders, and they seemed to be powerful Trainers.

Now, Wade was a person all for chivalry and fair play, but he was a pragmatists above all else, and the reality of the cutthroat environment of Galea was not one that dealt in kindness.

As such, he had decided that he wouldn't challenge them to a battle, as it was a foolish decision to barge headfirst. No- he would simply knock them out using the Torrential Badge's energy from afar. He could have killed them, but he wanted to take them for questioning first and then decide what he'd do with them.

As such, once he was in sight of where they had been last spotted, he nudged his Golduck and it began slowing down and making less of a noise. Stealthily, he made his way where he heard two voices talking about something called… Team Rocket? And he heard something about Ash, yes.

"Put them to sleep," he whispered to the Torrential Badge. There was a dull noise as two heavy things hit the floor.

He examined them and called his officers. The two were hardly beyond childhood, but then again, so was Ash Ketchum.

"Take their Pokeballs away from them," Wade said. "I want them examined and the strength of their Pokemon estimated. Then, I will go and interrogate them."

 **A/N: Sorry for taking so long, RL gets in the way. But it has been far too long, and I'm sorry Guest for the short update. This chapter isn't that long either, but I will be updating more rapidly now to compensate (hopefully).**

 **Julie Togepi, thanks for the review. As for the other Guest, yes, that does happen, but this isn't a complete carbon copy of the Keys to the Kingdom, I've mixed up quite a little extra of my own.**

 **Thanks for reading everyone, and do please review if you liked.**


	43. VS Wade VII

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! Thanks to Great, Julie Togepi, and Crestilia. Yeah, I'm glad to see you enjoyed the joke about Ash, and how he's still ten despite years having clearly passed in the anime.**

All Trainers were aware of how difficult it could be to get an unwilling Pokemon out of its Pokeball. It was even harder when the Pokemon in question weren't even yours.

However, Wade didn't need to open the Pokeballs he had captured to know what sort of Pokemon Brock and Misty had. With the development of the Pokemon Storage System, it was also possible to examine Pokeballs and tell what kind of Pokemon were inside without even opening them. It was also possible to determine the 'level' of Pokemon so to speak, or in other words, to gauge how strong they were.

"So, that's their conclusive report, sir," Wendy said. "We didn't find anything too odd about their Pokemon, they're kind of strong- which is why the scouts had so much trouble- but they're not really anything compared to yours."

"Hmm," Wade stroked his chin as he read the report. "You're right- they are certainly powerful- ah, look a Gyarados, but not capable of defeating me. Does the girl really have only Water type Pokemon?"

"Yes," Wendy said. "We can't tell why, but all the Pokemon on her were Water type. Odd, I know."

"The boy's Pokemon are also powerful," Wade said. "But most of them are Ground or Rock types, giving my Gyarados a huge advantage there- wait." He frowned and squinted at the paper. "What's the deal with this… ah, Greninja?"

"We're not sure," Wendy said. "For some reason, it doesn't have the Torrent ability like a normal Greninja and the computer seemed to have difficulty giving a readout. Maybe it's just because, well, Greninja aren't very common in Galea and it had difficulty reading one for the first time."

"Yes, well they are rare," Wade said. "And this one so _powerful_ , in the right hands of course. I would love to have a Pokemon like that…" he trailed off.

Wendy started looking nervous. She had only worked with Wade for three years, but they had been enough to get a gauge of his personality to some extent. And she saw something in Wade's eyes she hadn't seen before- avarice. "Um, sir… will you be appropriating the Greninja?"

Wade snapped out of whatever thoughts he was lost in and said, "Ah, no, I will not be appropriating the Pokemon. After all, I have a good stash of my own."

Both of them knew that 'appropriating' was simply a euphemism for stealing. It was not odd for a Gym Leader to take a Pokemon by force if they happened to fancy it, but Wade considered himself above that. At least, he usually did.

"So, if you don't mind me asking sir, why did you want this chart?" Wendy asked. "You've never asked for one before."

"Oh, see, I wish to interrogate the prisoners myself," Wade said. "Using my Badge. But, if one of them were to challenge me, I'd have to take them up on it."

"But how'd they challenge you? I mean, they don't even have their own Pokemon," Wendy said.

"According to the rules, I'd have to give them their Pokemon back," Wade said. "For the challenge, of course. But, now that I'm almost certain that they will be unable to carry the day against me, I can go through with it with ease."

"Shall I come with you to interrogate the prisoners?" Wendy asked.

"Certainly. Bring a notepad and pen along, take notes while we talk if anything important happens," Wade said.

"Yes sir," Wendy said. She sighed, she wasn't used to being treated like a secretary, but the thing was that this was a special case after all, and Wade would only want someone he trusted on the job so… she shook her head and decided that she would consider being assigned this job a compliment.

Wade had not imprisoned Brock and Misty in the normal holding cells, and instead had kept them in a remote cave away from prying eyes. The last thing he needed was stories going around about people coming from beyond the barrier, next thing you'd know people would think that the world was coming to an end.

The cave had been abandoned, but some lights had been put up by his men. There was only one chair, which Wade took. The prisoners were sleeping soundly on the ground, and Wendy guessed she was supposed to stand.

"Shall I wake them up?" Wendy asked.

Wade shook his head. "No. My Badge put them to sleep, and that is what will wake them up."

As Wade commanded his Badge to release the two from their slumber, The two awoke instantly.

"Where… what is this place?" the girl asked, apparently a bit dazed from the spell.

"You are currently in a cave," Wade said. "Within my territory. I do believe that the two of you were trespassing on my domain. State your names for the record."

"Where're my Pokemon?" the girl asked.

Wade frowned. "I said state your names for the record!" Wendy flinched, it wasn't common for Wade to get angry or to shout, but Wade probably felt that a certain show of force would be necessary around these two.

Far from groveling or getting scared, the girl's eyes hardened. Wade was unused to that. "Where are my Pokemon?" she repeated.

"I have currently relieved you of your Pokemon," Wade said.

"Meaning you took them from us," the boy said.

"State your names for the record," Wade repeated.

"Misty," the girl said.

"Brock," the boy said.

Wendy was scribbling on her notepad.

"Where are you from?" Wade asked.

"The Pewter City Gym," Brock said.

"The Cerulean City Gym," Misty said.

"Where are these places?" Wade asked.

"Excuse me, how are they spelt?" Wendy asked. Wade turned to shoot an annoyed look at her.

"It doesn't matter for now how they're spelt, just make something up," Wade said. Turning to Brock and Misty, he added, "Now, where are these places exactly?"

"The Kanto region," Brock said.

"So where are we right now?" Misty asked.

"Ah yes, Kanto," Wade said. "I've heard of the place. As for your question, we are currently in my domain in the region of Galea."

"I thought so," Brock said.

"How did you get here?" Wade asked.

"Well, there was a machine," Misty said. "It was made to transmit signals to Galea, but there was an accident and we ended up here too."

Wade frowned. "A machine? Capable of getting through the barrier! Impossible!"

"It's true," Brock said.

Wade decided to check using his Torrential Badge, forcing the two of them to tell the truth. They repeated the exact same thing.

"This is distressing news," Wade said. "First of all, a child somehow manages to end up here. Then, a machine manages to get these two through. That can only mean that the barrier has weakened considerably to allow this to happen. Wendy, send a message to Selena and tell her that the barrier is unraveling far faster than it is supposed to."

"What is the barrier?" Brock asked.

"Well, you see, approximately thirty-three years ago, to protect this land from a great calamity, I, along with seven other Gym Leaders, created a barrier to send this land into a sort of limbo and cut it off from the rest of the world," Wade said. "Normally, it should have lasted for a good several hundred years before we'd have to come together and fix it again, but for some reason it has weakened considerably. Now, enough with that, _I_ will be the one asking the questions."

"Have you heard anything about Ash?" Misty asked. "He was a friend of ours."

"Did you just go ahead and completely ignore what I-" Wade said before pausing. "Ash Ketchum? The two of you openly acknowledge knowing him?"

"Yeah, he's like our oldest friend," Brock said.

"So you openly admit that you're in league with that invader," Wade muttered.

"Invader?" Misty asked, confused.

"Yes," Wade asked. "Your 'friend' if you do not know, has gone and usurped power from four of my, ah, colleagues. He now controls half of Galea, and is planning to invade another region."

"Ash? Usurping stuff?" Brock asked. "Look, you've probably got the wrong Ash Ketchum here."

"Tell me all that you know about Ash," Wade said. "Now."

"What're you going to do with him?" Brock asked.

"None of your business," Wade said. "Now, do tell me about him."

Misty frowned. "Hey! You can't go and treat us like this you know! Both of us, we're Gym Leaders from Kanto! That means we have, uh, diplomatic immunity- yeah, we have that."

Brock said, "Uh- I mean, yeah, that's true. And the Pokemon League of Kanto will be pretty mad if they found out you've wrongfully detained us."

Wade scratched his chin. "Even if you do happen to have diplomatic immunity, in this current state, according to the laws of this land well, I can basically do what I want here."

"Then if you're so tough, why don't you battle us first, huh?" Misty asked.

Wade frowned. Did that technically qualify as a challenge? No, it wasn't a direct challenge.

"A battle would be futile. You wouldn't last for long," Wade said. "I know the strength of your Pokemon."

"Oh yeah?" Brock asked, in a fury now and in no mood to mess about. "Well, consider this a real challenge to a battle!"

Wade exhaled. Now _that_ definitely was a challenge. "Get their Pokemon for them," he signaled to Wendy. "I'm guessing the girl won't agree to go the easy way either."

However, truth be told, he was quite excited. He hadn't fought a real challenger for ages, and it would be excellent practice for Ash Ketchum. Not to mention it was obvious that these two weren't going to cooperate that easily and defeating them would probably teach them a lesson.

And after all, deep down, Wade was a Pokemon Trainer. And what did a Trainer want aside from a battle, after all? The Gym Leaders had banned Pokemon ownership among the majority of the population, but that meant that they were deprived of any real challengers. And for how long would he continue to live like a trapped Rattata, afraid of someone challenging him?

* * *

Brock decided that he would battle first. They were having the battle right outside the cave and their field would be the open ocean and the beach.

Wade considered getting the rest of his Gym Trainers, but he was sure about winning and so decided that simply Wendy would do for now.

"Go! Lanturn!" Wendy shouted and sent out her trusty Lanturn. She liked it as its Electric typing meant that it could easily take down other Water type Pokemon.

"Go! Swampert!" Brock said.

"Huh… haven't seen one of those before," Wendy said. Still, she remembered reading something about it though, but couldn't remember exactly what it was. Still, it was a Water type. "Thunderbolt!"

It didn't seem to do anything to the Swampert. "Use Mud Bomb!" Brock said and it was then that Wendy nearly face-palmed as she realized what she had missed out- Swampert was part Ground type! Her Lanturn didn't stand a chance and was knocked out in a hit.

If Wade was disappointed in her, he didn't show it.

"Nice job," Wendy admitted. "But, I have a solution for that though! Lombre!"

Wendy smirked, the Water-Ground typing was something she had seen on some Whiscash before, and they always fell to Grass moves which where four times as effective.

"Mega Drain! Go!" Wendy said. The attack hit home and orbs of green light went towards her Lombre, but that Swampert was made up of some really tough stuff as it was still standing.

"Come back!" Brock said and switched out for his Toxicroak, which thankfully, after evolving, no longer tried to attack him. "Poison Jab!"

Now, that attack hit home and took out the Lombre. Wendy frowned, she was usually used to taking out her opponents with ease! She sent out another Lombre for it to meet the same fate.

"Go! Chandelure!" Wendy sent out. "Use Flamethrower!"

"Use Poison Jab!" Brock said.

They two Pokemon basically just went at it with those attacks continuously until they both fainted simultaneously.

"Go! Sharpedo!" Wendy said.

"Go! Foretress!" Brock said.

"Another one I've never seen before," Wendy muttered to herself. She wasn't even sure which type it was… it kind of looked like a Bug type, but also a Steel one as well.

"Use Pin Missile!" Brock said.

The Foretress spun around and began shooting darts at the Sharpedo. Wendy ordered it to dive, but the shots still went through the water. A good deal of them missed, but Sharpedo was hit by quite a few.

"Keep it up!" Brock said.

Wendy tapped her foot as she thought of an idea. Her Sharpedo was her best Pokemon, and it seemed to be holding up fine, but she couldn't figure out how to tackle the Foretress. "Sharpedo! Use Water Pulse!" she said, figuring a long-ranged attack would be the best bet currently.

"Foretress! Dodge it!" Brock said and his Foretress got out of the way.

"Well, this is getting nowhere very fast," Wade muttered to himself. The Foretress wasn't going to go into the ocean, and the Sharpedo wasn't going to come out of the water. At this rate the battle was going to be a large amount of nothing.

"Foretress! Rapid Spin!" Brock said and his Foretress began rotating even faster, and then began skipping on the waves like a stone. "Now find the Sharpedo and use Iron Head!"

The attack landed and unlike the Pin Missiles, it seemed to have done a lot of damage, though Foretress took some damage too thanks to Sharpedo's Rough Skin.

"Ice Fang!" Wendy said and her Sharpedo jumped out of the waves and chomped down hard on Foretress before its teeth broke on Foretress' iron-hard shell.

"Hah!" Brock said.

Wendy smirked. "A Sharpedo's teeth grow back almost instantly. Use Water Pulse now!"

"Use Pin Missile again!" Brock said. This time, the attacks hit home and Sharpedo petered out, but not before Foretress took a brutal attack head-on.

"I lost," Wendy said. "Sorry, Lord Wade."

"It's alright," Wade said. "Now at least I have a gauge of how good he is." And, Wade thought, a relative idea of how good Ash Ketchum was. Plus, this was good practice for Wendy as well, he reckoned.

"You'll face me now," Wade said. "But before we battle, let me explain my special rule to you. I can negate the abilities of Pokemon in battle."

"What?" Brock asked. "What's a special rule?"

"It's just something I can do, okay, I shouldn't be having to explain this sort of basics," Wade said before remembering that Brock hadn't been in Galea before ever.

"Alright then," Brock said. "Though I don't get it. Just how exactly do you do something like that?"

"You'll see. Go, Gyarados!" Wade said and sent out a Gyarados. A Shiny, red Gyarados.

"Whoa! How'd you get one of a different color?" Brock asked."I mean, I've seen one before, back in Johto, but..."

"Oh, it took several hundred tries to find a gold colored Magikarp, and then I evolved it," Wade said. "I have a fondness for rare Pokemon that are hard to get. They're usually not the best battlers, but I'm a- ah, a Pokemon collector as well, I guess one might say."

"Right," Brock said.

"Well, let's get to the battle then," Wade said. "Gyarados! Use Surf!"

The resultant tidal wave drenched everyone and everything, except for Brock and Wade, who were both protected by the Torrential Badge, Wade because he was Gym Leader and Brock because he was currently a challenger and got some degree of protection from the Torrential Badge.

Misty and Wendy were soaked though, and Brock's Foretress was down for the count.

"Well, then, go Steelix!" Brock said.

The Gyarados and Steelix were about the same size, and both were almost equally intimidating. But, type advantage favored the Gyarados, of course.

"Gyarados, use Brine!" Wade said.

The attack hit Steelix hard, and to Brock's complete and utter surprise it fainted in a single hit.

"What? But how?" Brock asked. He wasn't expecting it to last long against a Gyarados, but Pokemon like Steelix could always endure a single hit at least.

"Like I said before, I can negate abilities," Wade said. "A Steelix has the Sturdy ability, which would normally have given you the chance to hold out for some time, but I've taken that advantage away."

Misty frowned. "How is that fair?"

Wade shrugged. "It is how it is."

"Swampert! Go!" Brock said and sent out his Swampert, which was still doing pretty alright even though it had taken a bad hit from a Lombre.

"Ice Fang!" Wade said.

"Swampert! Dodge!" Brock said. Swampert barely got out of the way and rolled into the sand.

"Swampert! Counter with an Ice Beam of your own!" Brock said.

Brock's attack hit home, but all it seemed to do was enrage Gyarados even more.

Wade smirked. There was a reason his Gyarados was his pride and joy. "Use Dragon Rage!"

Gyarados released a haze of dark energy that struck Swampert.

"Ice Beam! Again!" Brock said, sounding desperate.

"Ice Fang!" Wade said. The attack should have taken out the Swampert, but it dodged, leaving his Gyarados with a mouthful of sand.

"Rock Tomb!" Brock then said. Swampert began hurling boulders from the ground at Gyarados, and they seemed to be doing quite some damage. Enough for Gyarados to be seriously enraged.

"Enough playing! Gyarados! Use Hyper Beam!" Wade said.

An awe-inspiring beam of destruction left Gyarados' mouth… and missed its target by a hair, punching a hole through the mass of rock and and thereby generating a new tunnel in the cave they had been in.

"Rock Tomb!" Brock said, and with Gyarados unable to move after an attack like that, the rocks hit home and Gyarados fainted.

"Argh! You'll- you'll pay for- you know what, actually, it's been quite some time since someone took down my Gyarados," Wade said and smiled. "I suppose I shouldn't be so enraged. Unfortunately for you, although he was my favorite and my rarest Pokemon, he wasn't the strongest. And I haven't even shown my trump card yet… Go! Shiftry!"

Shiftry came out and looked around like it hadn't been out of its Pokeball in a long time. Misty kind of felt sort of sorry for it.

"I don't normally use her that much anymore," Wade said, "But with a type advantage necessary, well, anyway, Razor Leaf!"

Swampert was unable to dodge, and was taken out quickly.

"Go! Crobat!" Brock said and sent out his Crobat. It was really sunny out, which seemed to annoy it, but this was hardly the time for Pokemon to be wearing sunglasses like it was a Pokemon Musical. "Use Poison Fang!"

"Extrasensory!" Wade said. Both attacks had the type advantage, but Brock's Crobat seemed to have come out on top.

"Poisoned…" Wade muttered to himself. "Shiftry! Get out of range and keep using Extrasensory!"

"Crobat! Use Air Slash!" Brock said, rather than trying to get closer.

The Air Slash missed unfortunately, but the Extrasensory hit home and Crobat went teetering down to the ground. Before it could collide with the beach, Brock withdrew it.

"Greninja! Go!" Brock said. Greninja may not have technically been his, but Brock sure hoped that he would respond to his commands. This was his last chance.

"So that's the Greninja," Wade said. "You know, the report did say it was odd, and now that I look at it… it is certainly quite different from the one that Arthur of the Elite Four had. To a collector such as myself, it certainly stands out. And it's not because it's a Shiny, so to speak. Boy, tell me just what is different about that Greninja?"

"Um, not much that I know of, but it has a close connection with its Trainer," Brock said. "Plus I think it can transform or something. Anyway, that's not what I'm here for. Greninja! Use Quick Attack!"

Greninja didn't obey instantly and glanced back at Brock and at the Shiftry in front of it, as if contemplating whether or not to go ahead.

"Come on now! This is for Ash! You want to meet him, right?" Brock asked.

"Shiftry! Feint Attack!" Wade shouted. Greninja watched as Shiftry disappeared for a second before reappearing near it and striking it.

The attack didn't seem to do much other than startle Greninja, however.

"Ah yes, I forgot, it's also a Dark type," Wade said. "Shiftry! Razor Leaf! Again!"

Greninja was sufficiently mad enough to start dodging, though it still wasn't listening to Brock much and using Water Shuriken, which had little effect on Shiftry.

Wade smirked. "Tell me, what kind of Gym Leader can't even get his Pokemon to obey him? Even Marley and Freyja could handle that at the very least."

"It's just kind of new, that's all," Brock said.

The fight had deteriorated form an orderly Pokemon battle to Greninja dodging and striking of its own will while Wade commanded Shiftry to continue attacking relentlessly with Razor Leaf.

In the end, Greninja fainted, and Shiftry did two seconds after as well, succumbing to the poison.

"I cant' believe I lost," Brock said, falling to his knees.

"Let me heal your Pokemon," Wade said to Wendy after healing his own. "Now, I do believe that I've won. I must say though that I really do admire that Greninja though. It's quite a shame that it has to end up with a Trainer like you. I think it would do better in my hands."

Wendy realized what was happening and bit her lip. Wade was going through with his plans on taking Greninja. She wasn't sure what to say without risking Wade's wrath.

"Wendy, hand me the boy's Gr-abahfabea," Wade said.

"Huh?" Wendy asked.

"I don't know why that happened," Wade said. "I felt the Badge vibrate and, and I just couldn't speak." He frowned, that meant that he was breaking the rules somehow. But what? There was nothing against taking a Pokemon from a commoner! The others had done it so many times!

"Boy! Give me your Gr- addasgaf. I wish to possess your Greninja! Wait- why does that work?"

"You can't take his Greninja!" Misty said. "You have no right!"

"I am a Gym Leader!" Wade said. "I have as much right as any king or queen- no, greater than that of even a king or queen within my territory! I could have him executed right now should I wish it!"

Wendy took a step back. She'd never seen this side of her master before, he was behaving very oddly what with all the shouting and there was a weird look in his eyes. Had he always been like this, deep down?

"Wait? You mean like… killed?" Brock asked and then gulped. He had met villains like Team Rocket before who did occasionally kill people and Pokemon, and had always known of course that people died… but to kill someone over a Pokemon battle? What kind of messed up world was this?

"Well yes, one does need to kill people in my position from time to time," Wade said. "I suppose you would know, of course, being a Gym Leader. It's that justice and the people demand it. A serial killer, for instance, in the eyes of many deserves nothing less than to be put to the sword."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Brock said. "I'm a Gym Leader… or at least I was, and I didn't kill people."

"Really?" Wade asked, confused. "But then… how did you maintain law and order within your realm? Did you go ahead and ban the death penalty?"

"The police kept law and order," Brock said. "And Officer Jenny- well, she kept my hear- ouch! Misty, you don't need to pull so hard! My ears are very sensitive, you know!"

"But- don't they work under you?" Wade asked incredulously. "Or do you just delegate all tasks to them?"

"I don't really get what you're saying," Misty said. "All we did as Gym Leaders was take on challengers."

"But- but what's the point of that?" Wade asked.

"Please, don't take Greninja though," Brock said. "I mean, he's one of Ash's favorite Pokemon."

Wade's eyes widened. "One of- of course! Now that explains it! If that Greninja belongs to one of the seven other Gym Leaders, well then, I can't take it. Accord and all forbids us from taking each other's property. So I can't order you to give it to me, or take it myself, or get one of my officers to do so."

Wendy was afraid that Wade would get angrier, but now that he knew that he couldn't have it, he seemed to have calmed down. "Well then, Brock, that was ah, an interesting battle. I've fought people of course, but those were my own officers and I could tell few of them were really trying. And you're not bad either, really, you clearly beat Marley out of the water. Now, I do believe that Misty wishes to be next?"

"You bet!" Misty said. "Don't worry Brock- I'll handle him!"

"I doubt it," Wade muttered. "First, take on Wendy. You're a new challenger, so you'll start from the beginning."

Misty had a greater difficulty handling Wendy due to her Lanturn and the fact that she only had Water type Pokemon. Her Corsola and Politoad were both knocked out before the match was over.

"Well, Wendy's lost again," Wade said. "No matter, don't fret Wendy, these people are clearly good." As he turned to face Misty and their match began though, he asked, "By the way, why are all of your Pokemon Water types? I mean, it is normal to have a favorite type, but why would you keep a full team, and then only have a single type?"

"Water type Pokemon are very versatile," Misty replied.

"Yes, well they are, if you use ones which have mixed typing," Wade said. "Most of yours are just Water types and for that matter nothing that guards against Electric attacks."

"Well, we'll just see about that," Misty said.

"And another thing," Wade said. "Do people really dress up like that where you come from?"

"Yes," Misty said. "Go! Gyarados!"

"Ah," Wade said, smiling. A Gyarados v. Gyarados match was bound to be interesting, especially since he was sure his was the better. "Well then! Ice Fang!"

"Gyarados! Dragon Rage!" Misty said.

A Gyarados on its lonesome was scary enough, but with two of them moving at each other, spraying waves five feet high onto the shore and making noises that echoed for miles around, it was something that made Wade and the others feel very small indeed.

Their attacks didn't do much damage, but they did enrage each other. Wade wanted to be riding his Gyarados while his opponent did the same- it would be so much more amazing and worthy perhaps of a portrait! But then again, also a bit impractical, so he didn't voice the idea.

"Ice Fang! Again!"

"Dragon Rage! Again!"

Wade's Gyarados held its opponent in a firm grasp between its icy-cold teeth while the other Gyarados writhed in pain and sent a blast of haze back, but Wade's Gyarados didn't release its grip.

"Gyarados! Hyper Beam!" Misty said.

The ray of destruction was as beautiful and deadly as last time, except for the fact that it actually hit its mark. And, it occurred to Wade, of course it would, if they were so close together there was no chance of it missing. That girl must have learned from his mistake up against Brock.

"Oh dear," he said as he saw that the attack had done more damage than he had thought, and his Gyarados fainted. "Come back, you did a great job."

Truth was though, he was quite mad that a Gyarados that wasn't even above average had come and defeated his Shiny one. Oh, he would have his revenge, of course!

"Go! Shiftry!" Wade said. "Use Razor Leaf!"

It seemed that Misty's Gyarados had been weakened considerably, and also had to recharge from that attack now, so Shiftry was able to take it out without taking a hit herself.

"Go! Starmie!" Misty said.

Wade said, "Again, you don't seem to understand type disadvantage. A Pyschic type against a Dark type? On top of the Grass on Water disadvantage? Shiftry! Use Feint Attack!"

Shiftry disappeared again.

"Starmie! You have your radar. Wait for her, and when she appears, use Ice Beam!" Misty said.

Shiftry appeared, and Starmie dodged it by the skin of its non-existent teeth and fired an Ice Beam away at it.

"Shiftry! Razor Leaf!"

"Starmie! Use Rapid Spin to get away!"

"Shiftry! Extrasensory!" While that attack hit, it hardly did any damage.

"Starmie! Use Ice Beam again!"

"Use Razor Leaf!"

A very beaten-up Shiftry finally took down the Starmie.

"Go! Psyduck!" Misty said. She hoped that her Psyduck wouldn't mess up like usual and maybe even show some of its hidden powers that it did sometimes.

The next two minutes proved how wrong she was as Shiftry took Psyduck down.

"You're down to your last Pokemon," Wade said. "Make it count."

"Go! Seadra!" Misty said. "Use Dragon Pulse!"

Shiftry was barely hanging on at that point.

"Razor Leaf! Again!" Wade said but Seadra just dived beneath the ocean's surface.

"Seadra! Water Pulse!"

Shiftry managed to avoid the attack, and used an Extrasensory that didn't do all that much damage. Wade withdrew his Shiftry as this was clearly not working and switched it out for his Skarmory.

"Skarmory! Aerial Ace!" Wade said. This battle had gone on for too long in his opinion, and now was a time to bring it to a rapid conclusion. If the Skarmory didn't work… he would go directly to his strongest Pokemon.

"Water Pulse!" Misty said. She knew that trying to dodge an Aerial Ace was a futile move, and so the best way to counter was to strike back as hard as she could.

It turned out that Seadra got the raw end of the deal, with Skarmory shrugging the Water Pulse off but with Seadra bobbing dazed in the water, as if it was no longer conscious.

"Oh no…" Misty said before Seadra seemed to snap back into cognizance. "Oh, good. Use Hydro Pump!"

"Use Aerial Ace to dodge it and strike at her!" Wade said.

The Skarmory flew around in an arc in the air, moving so that the Hydro Pump completely missed it and then striking a finishing blow on Misty's Seadra.

"And so, you too, fall," Wade said. "I'll say it again, you two are reasonably decent Trainers."

"So what now?" Misty asked. The fire that had been in her eyes had been doused. "Are you going to kill us?" She seemed to have already accepted her fate.

"Ah no, of course not!" Wade said. "I wouldn't kill Ash either, truth be told, if I could stop him either. I do not kill people as young as you, and after all, I do believe that you didn't mean any harm. I may have gotten carried away in threatening you- I had merely meant that I could have and that there are others who would have done something along those lines." He folded his arms. "Now, so long as you two don't cause any more trouble, you will simply be imprisoned."

"Imprisoned?" Misty asked.

"Oh please, you make it sound so terrible! As if I'm going to place you in an old dungeon with rotting bricks and only lice-infested gruel to eat. No, no, you'll be given every comfort. See, your friend, Ash Ketchum, has refused to battle me. I'm certain with you two as hostages, he'll definitely come running to challenge me, and if not, at least for his Greninja. I can't imagine a Trainer abandoning a Pokemon as special as that. I certainly would, if it were me," Wade said.

He turned to Wendy. "These two won't be causing me any more trouble, but I say we now take them to somewhere with a telephone booth. I haven't actually kidnapped anyone before you know- but desperate times and all. I do assume of course, that Ash want to see proof that his friends are alive before he comes running to challenge me."

* * *

"Dang it James! That was our last coconut!"

"Well, I was hungry Jessie, you know, I need my food!"

"And you took the last piece of food on this island? What gives you the right?"

"Right? What gave you the right to be such a lousy partner who never does anything aside from whining all the time?"

Meowth, meanwhile, wasn't shouting, as he was trying to conserve his energy. His stomach rumbled again- man, it was hard not having food. It was even harder having no Pokemon, as both of his so-called 'smart' humans had decided to leave them at the Team Rocket base except for Jessie's Wobuffet, which was only slightly less useless than Jessie herself at this point.

As such, they had only a few bits of equipment they had on hand with nothing that was useful in trying to get out of this place.

"And all of this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for your idea, James! You're the one who thought that Professor Sycamore was onto something!"

"Well! He _was_ onto something, wasn't he! And what were we supposed to be doing anyway? Moping around! Boss Giovanni was going to have us fired!"

"Yeah, well now we're starving too death! That's soooo much better, James! You should get a medal!"

It was then that something occurred to Meowth: if these people starved for too long, he would be the first one that they would eat in order to survive. He shuddered, there were a lot of problems in being a Pokemon in a world ruled by humans, but by far this was a scenario he never thought that he'd run into. He completely zoned out of what the other two were saying as he imagined himself being roasted over a fire…

"Meowth! What do you think?"

"I think that if we starve for too long, we cook Jessie's Wobuffet first!" Meowth said. "It's much larger!"

"That wasn't what we were talking about at all…"

"And anyway, we could always try fishing," James said.

"The only thing I've managed to catch was something the size of a goldfish after two hours," Meowth said. "And I'm much better at fishing than either of you are!"

 **A/N: And so, there ends one of the longest chapters in this fanfic. Also, it's almost been a year since I started this. We're only at the 43rd chapter, so the once-a-week thing hasn't gone as planned and has had some delays, I'll admit. Also, we've crossed 100,000 words, making this the longest fanfic I've ever written.  
**

 **I glossed over Misty's fight with Wendy as I thought this was long enough. As for 'levels' I know that the Pokemon video game has them, but they've also been mentioned in the anime like in the episode 'The School of Hard Knocks' I think that it was mentioned which levels Pidgey evolves, but I'm unsure if they're mentioned later on in seasons like XY &Z. Also, the idea for the machine scanning their Pokemon and making a report is kind of based on an idea of basically using X-Rays on a Pokeball.  
**

 **Also, I've always gotten the impression from the anime that Brock and Misty were almost as Ash's level, despite the fact that Ash got far more experience in battling than either of them. Of course, it also seems that Ash's abilities haven't grown at all, but for this story I've decided to depict Ash growing and as such, Brock and Misty are currently weaker Trainers than Ash.**

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	44. VS Wade VIII

**A/N: Thanks for the review, Julie Togepi. Yeah, you'd think that Misty would become very strong, but I was talking about that Kanto and Johto series where Misty didn't do as much battling as Ash and still seemed to be at almost the same level, with the same going for Brock. Sure, years of training at a Gym should've improved their skills... but by that logic the strongest Trainers should all be old people but the Elite Four seem to be in their twenties and thirties... and the strongest Trainers are sometimes children.**

Ash sighed. He still hadn't gotten past five pages of the book explaining contest rules, and he was already bored out of his head. He had never read up on much regarding human biology, but he guessed that if it was possible for people to actually die of boredom, well then, he would be coming close.

It didn't help that he had very little interest in contests anyway, or that most of the words seemed to be outdated gibberish to him and so he understood less of it than he normally would have.

As he glanced around his office though, an idea occurred to him. He had always been better at learning by watching other people do things rather than reading, A video tape would have been much better- but there weren't any of contests since no place other than Vanessa's domain seemed to care about them. But then again, he was technically in charge, so he could always force (in his head that was quickly replaced by 'request') his people to do a live demonstration of one so that he could learn better! And then he could stop trying to read. That was a bonus.

As he closed his book though, his thoughts immediately went to the paperwork he had to look over and he groaned. That was just out of the frying pan and into the fire. Why couldn't something interesting happen?

Someone should've told Ash Ketchum to be careful about what he wished for.

The phone in his room began ringing, and Ash thought he recognized the number as Wade's. Honestly, that guy was just short of being telemarketer kind of annoying in Ash's book, but considering that he didn't have much better to do he picked it up anyway.

"So what's it this time?" Ash asked before he noticed two people in the background.

"Oh, I see from your expression that you've probably already understood what's happening," Wade said. "Remove their gags, please."

"Ash!" Misty said from the corner.

"Great, now put them back on," Wade said. "As you can clearly see, I have two of your friends captive. Also, I have your Greninja with me as well."

"What do you want?" Ash asked.

"Oh that's obvious," Wade said. "I want your Gym Badges of course, but I can't take them as ransom. That counts as taking them by force and they have to either be won in combat or given freely, so what I want is for you to battle me. I think you're still in Linnea's old capital?"

"Yes," Ash said.

"Good then, because I'm currently only twenty miles offshore from where you are," Wade said. "Don't keep me waiting for too long." The phone disconnected, but from a small slit at the bottom a fax arrived, with a map of Galea and a red X on it that could only be Wade's location.

Ash stared at the map. The next moment, he had grabbed Pikachu and bolted down the stairs two at a time.

There was a brief but heated meeting. It was heated as Celera, Mr. Jennings, Gulliver, and his other advisers strongly recommended waiting for further info rather than charging in blindly. It was brief as Ash was in charge and so he ended the meeting after five minutes anyway, rented a motorboat, and set off for Wade with Gulliver as his first mate.

Gulliver kept asking questions along the way, but Ash was so full of adrenaline that he didn't remember what it was that he had answered. He just covered his eyes from the glaring sun and tried to calm himself down.

The island wasn't hard to find. As they approached the beach, Ash saw Wade, just standing there, calmly. There were about a dozen people behind him. He couldn't see Brock or Misty, but there was a cottage on the island.

As they got off, Ash really wanted to dive ahead and challenge Wade to a battle instantly. It was what Wade wanted of course. But then again… his friends were at stake. So a small part of him, a very tiny wise part- said that he should try something else first.

"So, Wade, you want to battle?" Ash asked.

"That is correct," Wade said.

"Where are they?" Ash asked.

"Oh, they're currently inside," Wade said. "Don't worry, I haven't touched a single hair on their heads."

"Well, if you want to fight me, why not fair and square?" Ash asked. 'Those people behind you- some of them are your Gym Trainers, right? Well then, why don't we just have a battle between you and me directly. After all, you do have a reputation for being fair, don't you?"

Wade seemed to be seriously considering it. It was something that Ash was counting on, while he had heard that Wade was about Linnea's level, his chances of winning would be reduced if he had to fight five Trainers before he got to Wade. He thought that perhaps appealing to his good side might get him to agree to a fairer fight, and it would be especially important since he didn't know Wade's special rule and what he was getting into.

"No," Wade finally said. Well, it had been a long shot anyway. "I think I will reject your, ah, kind offer. After all, it does seem a bit unfair for me to use five Trainers, but then again, this is war, not a children's game, and I consider it perfectly acceptable to use whatever advantage I might have. After all, you weren't even going to fight me in the first place."

"Let's start then," Ash said."I challenge you to a battle!"

"Can everybody wait a minute," Gulliver said. Everyone turned to look at him and he looked slightly freaked out by all the attention. "Uh, I just wanted to say, uh, sirs and ma'ams, that Lord Wade here has Sir Ash's Greninja, right?"

"Yes," Wade said. "And just who exactly are you supposed to be?"

"I'm Sir Ash's right 'and man, sir," Gulliver said. "And, since the Greninja is milord's property, than don't you gotta give it back to him if he asks?"

Ash blinked. "Right. Yeah, I would like my Greninja back."

Wade frowned. "Well, you heard the boy. Give him his Greninja back."

As Ash waited for his Pokemon, he took Gulliver aside and said, "Thanks buddy! I wouldn't have thought of that myself. I was too busy thinking… well, I wasn't thinking very much is all."

"No problem," Gulliver said, blushing slightly. "Just happy to be useful is all. I 'ope you win."

"Could I ask for Misty and Brock back too? They are my friends," Ash said.

"I don't think so," Gulliver said. "They're not yours like your Pokemon are yours, I mean you don't own them, slavery was banned several hundred years ago so I guess people don't count. But he can't kill them after you challenge him or hurt them anymore."

"Right, thanks again," Ash said. Pikachu squeaked happily at Gulliver and nuzzled his leg. It wasn't an actual Nuzzle, thankfully.

Ash got his Greninja back, but he was only allowed six Pokemon, so he took out his Grimer for the battle.

Wade had insisted on using a full set of Gym Trainers, but that proved to be of very little use as Ash swatted the majority of them down like fleas.

He preferred to use Roserade, for one thing Mega Drain meant that he could heal even if he got a bit of damage, and it was strong enough that even type advantage didn't seem to bother it much. Not to mention the sun was out and making the sea glitter, and Roserade seemed to enjoy it.

A girl named Wendy, who kind of reminded Ash of Lorelei of the Elite Four if her skin was slightly darker and she dressed up like a navy secretary. Her Lanturn managed to Paralyze his Roserade, but that was about it.

"Well, so that was all for naught, I guess," Wade said. "Now, my special rule is that I can negate the abilities of Pokemon."

"That's it?" Ash asked. "I was kind of expecting something more- I mean, I guess that Pikachu's Static and all won't work, but that rule doesn't seem to be overpowered like the others."

Wade smirked. "You haven't completely understood the scope of it, I think. No matter. Go! Gyarados!"

"Oh, a Red Gyarados," Ash said. That took him back all the way to Johto and reminded him of Lance… and Brock and Misty, both of whom had been with him! "Pikachu! Go!" A quadruple type advantage would useful here, even if Pikachu didn't have Static anymore.

"Dragon Rage!" Wade said.

"Pikachu, use Quick Attack to dodge," Ash said.

Pikachu moved with all speed despite the sand, but didn't go to strike Gyarados. "Now! Hit 'em with a Thunderbolt, Pikachu!"

Pikachu charged and let loose a bolt of lightning. It clearly did massive damage as the Gyarados shrieked in rage.

"Gyarados! Thrash!" Wade said.

But Ash wasn't going to give him an opportunity. "Thunderbolt! Finish it off now!"

Wade watched his prized Gyarados fall yet again. And it hadn't even taken down a single Pokemon yet.

"Not bad, though perhaps it was my mistake," Wade said. "I should've switched out. Shiftry, go!"

"Pikachu, nice job, come back," Ash said. "Go! Drapion! Use X-Scissor!"

It would've been a deadly attack if the Shiftry hadn't dodged it. "Use Extrasensory!" Wade said.

Ash opened his mouth to tell Drapion to dodge it before he realized that a Psychic move wasn't one that you could dodge. Thankfully the move didn't do too much damage. "Shake it off, Drapion, and get closer to Shiftry! Keep trying to land an X-Scissor!"

The sand didn't make it easy to move, especially for a Pokemon like Drapion, while a lighter one like Shiftry seemed to skip along as it pleased, using Extrasensory at a range and taking quite a toll on Drapion.

"Time for a change in tactics, Drapion, Sludge Bomb!" Ash said.

Now, the ranged attack did hit, but it didn't do enough. Another Extrasensory took care of Drapion.

"Good job," Ash said. "But here's something that won't get bogged down- Haunter, go! Use Venoshock!"

Ash was in for a surprise. Haunter, instead of floating around, promptly fell into the sand. It seemed to want to get up again, but was unable to.

"I do think it floats by the ability Levitate," Wade said. "Too bad that's negated."

"Still, use Venoshock!" Ash said.

The attack still worked, and Shiftry was taken care of before it could use a Dark attack.

"Go, Graveler!" Wade said. "Use Earthquake!"

The seismic wave seemed to be dampened only slightly by the sand, and there was no way for Ash to ask Haunter to dodge with it being unable to fly. Haunter was taken out.

"Haunter! Return!" Ash said. "Go! Roserade! Use Mega Drain!"

Roserade was Paralyzed, and unfortunately it found itself unable to move while Wade unleashed another Earthquake.

"Again! Mega Drain!" Ash said, hoping to recover from the damage that Roserade had taken.

This attack hit, and Roserade seemed markedly better than before, albeit still Paralyzed, and Graveller, instead of keeling over, seemed to have continued standing.

"That's the power of Sturdy," Wade said. "Now, Earthquake!"

The attack hit, and Ash called for another Mega Drain. Roserade was Paralyzed and unable to move, yet again, and so got hit with another Earthquake.

"Roserade! Mega Drain!" Ash said. This time the attack went through, but Roserade was still quite beat up after the whole ordeal anyway, as Graveler hardly had any life force to drain.

"Skarmory! Go!" Wade said.

Ash withdrew Roserade and switched for Arcanine. Thankfully, Arcanine was light on its feet and didn't mind the sand that much. "Arcanine! Use Flamethrower!"

"Use Aerial Ace to dodge, and then strike!" Wade said.

Ash remembered with a jolt that he had seen this strategy before… with Winona, a gym leader from Hoenn. And that attack was going to hit. Using Aerial Ace, Wade could dodge almost any attack and strike at the same time.

"Arcanine, use Flame Wheel to create a wall of fire around you!" Ash said.

"Skarmory! Pull out!" Wade said. But Skarmory was going too fast to stop and ran full force into a wall of fire.

"Arcanine! Don't let it get away! Use Fire Fang!' Ash said.

Arcanine leaped on its opponent using Fire Fang and kept the Skarmory pinned to the ground.

"Skarmory! Get out of its grip. Use Peck!" Wade said. Skarmory pecked Arcanine on his nose, and that was enough for it to break free.

"Finish it off with a Flamethrower!" Ash said. Skarmory couldn't take off fast enough and was engulfed in flames made even hotter by the scorching sun.

"Skarmory, return," Wade said. "Go! Golduck!"

"Arcanine! Come back! Go, Pikachu!" Ash said. "Use Thunderbolt!"

"Golduck! Use Surf!" Wade said.

A huge wave crashed towards Pikachu, and a huge bolt of lightning arced towards Golduck. They both collided in a wave of sparks and water so that for a few seconds, it was impossible to tell what had happened at all.

The wave receded to reveal Pikachu sitting in the sun happily with Golduck unable to get up.

"So much for that," Wade said.

"Well, you're at your last Pokemon," Ash said confidently. He still had four Pokemon standing and Wade had only one. He figured this was in the bag.

"Allow me to tell you a little story, _boy_ ," Wade said. "You see, around fifty years ago I was a Trainer not much unlike yourself, when I won the Torrential Badge. I managed to do it with a single Pokemon, one that I doted on of course, even though I expanded my collection later on. The Pokemon in question was a Vigoroth, a Pokemon that I kept from evolving initially using an Everstone."

"Are you going to keep talking or are we actually gonna fight?" Ash asked. "Or are you just stalling?"

"No, I'm just pointing out why the fact that you relegated my special rule as nothing worth worrying about was a big mistake," Wade said. "If it there was no point in having it, I wouldn't have used it. Go! Slaking!"

Unlike Marley's Slaking, it didn't look like it was suffering from anorexia or like it would fall over at the slightest breeze. It was even taller and heavier than Norman's Slaking. Also, rather than lying down, it was standing on two feet like a human.

"I thought you hadn't evolved it," Ash said.

"I didn't finish, did I?" Wade asked. "See, the problem with a Slaking is that it is so lazy that half the time, even in the midst of a battle, it does nothing. It has incredible attack power and speed, but those qualities are rather useless if it won't do anything fifty percent of the time. That's why I wanted to keep him as a Vigoroth, but then it struck me, I could just negate his ability."

"What?" Ash asked. "You mean you can…"

"Ah yes, I never mentioned saying that I could only negate _your_ Pokemon's abilities, or that I even had too," Wade said. "It applies to mine if I wish it, as you will shortly see, and I can use it to great effect. Slaking! Return!"

Slaking crossed over the space between himself and Pikachu with a speed that Ash thought wasn't possible, and with his left arm gave a backhand that knocked Pikachu back twenty feet.

And that was it. In the short amount of time it would have taken Ash to say a complete sentence, Pikachu, who was Ash's oldest Pokemon, and who had not been seriously hurt throughout the fight, had been taken down.

"You don't seem so smug now, do you?" Wade asked. "And oh yes, the sand doesn't bother my Slaking here a bit. After all, we've been practicing on sand for quite some time."

Ash withdrew his Pikachu and scratched his head. He tried to think back the time he had faced Norman, even though that had been a long time ago. He had defeated it using his Grovyle- after Grovyle had activated its Overgrowth ability. An ability which would not work in this situation!

But, Ash did get an idea. "Go! Roserade!"

"Really? Did you forget that your Pokemon is Paralyzed?" Wade asked. "Slaking, use Return again!"

"Solar Beam!" Ash said.

Slaking was right in front of Roserade when she released a beam of greenish-white light that smacked Slaking right in his mouth.

Ash smiled. He knew that even though Slaking was very tough, there was no way that a Pokemon could take a move that powerful from his Roserade. Slaking was pushed back ten feet and flipped over.

Slaking got up and brushed the sand off of himself. The attack had done serious damage, no doubt, but Slaking was capable of taking a hit.

"Oh, so that's why you choose Roserade," Wade said. "Of course you would, with the sun shining so brightly, Solar Beam needs no time to charge. Though you got lucky that Roserade was able to do something at all."

"You would've figured it out sooner if you'd just learn to praise the sun," Ash said. "Roserade! Use Solar Beam again!"

"Hyper Beam!" Wade said.

The two beams of light collided in mid-air as they battled for dominance. The resultant flare was so bright that neither Ash nor Wade could look at it directly.

Slowly but surely, Slaking won and the Hyper Beam struck Roserade. On the plus side though, the beam seemed to have lost most of its power and Roserade got up again.

"Okay, while Slaking's still recharging, use Mega Drain!" Ash said.

The attack didn't heal Roserade much, mainly because it did very little damage.

"Hit 'em with another Solar Beam!" Ash said.

This attack did another good bout of damage, but Slaking wasn't down from the count. If anything, taking two serious hits seemed to just encourage it. And, it was finally done recharging.

"Roserade! Another Solar Beam!"

"Slaking! Another Hyper Beam!"

Roserade moved her arms, but then suddenly stopped. Paralysis had a tendency to strike at the worst possible times. Roserade fainted.

But Ash didn't spend time regretting his decisions or cursing his luck, he sent out Arcanine next immediately, trying to strike as much as possible while Slaking was still breathing heavily, a worn-out look in his eyes, and some drool dribbling down the corner of his mouth. A Hyper Beam took a lot out of a Pokemon.

"Fire Blast!" Ash said. It was a powerful move made even stronger by the searing sun, but one that didn't seem to do enough damage to Slaking to knock it out. Ash really was astounded. How could anything possibly take that many powerful hits?

"Slaking, use Return!" Wade said.

"Arcanine! Use Extreme Speed to get away!" Ash said.

Arcanine bounded away, moving out of Slaking's range.

"Slaking! Focus Punch!" Wade said. Slaking stopped moving, and instead had closed its eyes and one of its fists started to glow red.

And then, it unleashed its attack. It was almost as powerful as a Hyper Beam. The punch itself was too far away from Arcanine, but the shockwave from it still struck the Pokemon, and that seemed to be enough to badly injure it.

"Now, use Body Slam!" Wade said.

Slaking launched itself into the air.

"Arcanine! Use Fire Blast!" Ash said.

Arcanine's flames struck Slaking right in the stomach, but it endured them and landed on Arcanine, finishing the poor thing off.

"That must've broken some bones," Wade said.

Slaking got up. Compared to before, it was in worse shape, but at the same time, still looked like it could dish out several more powerful blows.

"It's all down to you buddy," Ash said. He had kept his Greninja for last not because he thought it was weak, but because it had been such a long time since he had last seen it that he was worried if they'd get along, or if Greninja would still be ready for a battle.

Ash released Greninja. Greninja's eyes widened upon seeing Ash, and for a moment, Ash was back in Kalos and reliving all his fights with Greninja, and it was then that he got his confidence back. He could do this! After all, that Slaking had taken damage and clearly wasn't invincible. And, he had a special bond with his Greninja. Yup, Greninja would just transform, and they would beat Slaking!

Except for the fact that it sort of… didn't happen.

"Slaking! Use Body Slam!" Wade ordered.

"Greninja! Dodge!"

Greninja got out of the way. Thankfully, it was faster than Slaking, though it was clear to Ash that even if Slaking landed a single blow, it would all be over.

"Use Water Shuriken!" Ash said.

Greninja obeyed, always staying out of range of Slaking, and aiming for the Slaking's face and stomach, both spots which had been attacked before and would be much more painful. The Slaking howled.

Ash was confused, however. He couldn't feel himself linking up with Greninja like he usually did. Was it possibly because of Wade's special rule? Was that transformation an ability? Or was it because he no longer had a special connection with Greninja?

"Focus Punch!" Wade said.

"Greninja! Water Shuriken!" Ash said. The Water Shuriken broke Slaking out of its focus and the earlier attack like before never came. It was then that Ash realized that Focus Punch's drawback was that it could be interrupted.

The battle basically continued with Slaking running around and Greninja chucking Water Shuriken at him while dodging. The Water Shuriken were doing damage, but for a decisive blow, Ash guessed that Greninja would have to get close to Slaking. But Greninja couldn't, not without being crushed.

But then Ash got an idea. "Greninja! Dive into the ocean!"

That was an odd command, given how Greninja was a freshwater Pokemon and saltwater didn't suit it that much, but Greninja glanced back at its Trainer.

Though Ash knew Greninja wasn't transforming, he knew he still had a bond with his Pokemon. Enough that with a simple glance, he conveyed what he wanted Greninja to do.

Greninja dived into the sea.

"Slaking can swim, you know!" Wade said. "Slaking, go into the water and grab that Greninja!" Slaking stepped into the water- exactly what Ash had been hoping for.

Greninja was, by nature, a very stealthy Pokemon. As Slaking went deeper into the water and it came up to his waist, Greninja chose that moment to strike with a very close range Water Shuriken, involving three blows to the stomach, face, and neck.

With that, Slaking, finally toppled over.

Ash smiled. No matter what happened, it seemed that Greninja still did understand Ash.

Wade seemed too shocked for words. "Slaking! Get up- you _need to get up_!" he said desperately, but it was in vain, and his Torrential Badge left him and floated towards Ash.

As Ash gripped the Torrential Badge, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach. The next moment, he dumped his lunch onto the beach. And then his breakfast. Ash felt like he had suddenly developed a fever and began shivering even though the sun had felt uncomfortably warm just a few moments ago.

He remembered how Celera had said that maybe he just couldn't handle all the Badge's powers at once. It made him wonder if he had perhaps seriously overdosed himself.

That was his last coherent thought before he felt the world spin and he lost consciousness.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	45. VS Wade IX

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! aleking74, yeah, that was a Dark Souls reference. Julie Togepi, yeah that battle was kind of short, but I've received comments that I focus on the battles a bit too much, and to be honest I've read other fanfics and they don't really care that much about describing the individual battles. It seems to always focus on the characters more than they do on the battles, and I seem to sort of get that now. I mean, a battle is essentially always going to lead Ash to victory rather obviously. I'm not going to cut down on them entirely, but I might change the focus a little. I'd like to know if you guys maybe agree.**

 **Also, I don't know if this should be there or if it makes a lot of sense to be there, but I might as well put a 'trigger warning' in that this chapter is quite darker and more serious compared to the others.**

As Ash woke up, he realized first of all that he was lying down on something that didn't feel like sand. No- he was definitely on a bed. He could feel a mild headache originating behind his ears, but it wasn't too uncomfortable, and he didn't feel like he had a fever anymore.

He opened his eyes. He was in some sort of cottage- he vaguely remembered that there had been one on the island where he had fought Wade. He saw Brock, Misty, and Gulliver in the room. They were all in chairs and were snoozing away, and Misty had changed into some sort of male navy uniform for some reason. The curtains were drawn and the lights were turned on, so Ash guessed it was probably very late at night.

Ash saw his Pikachu sleeping at the corner of his bed. He finally noticed a clock- it was around four in the morning.

He didn't feel like moving though, or going back to sleep. So, he just sat there, not wanting to wake anyone up. After about an hour though, he accidentally moved a bit too much and startled Pikachu, who became really excited and made a lot of noises, waking up the others.

"Oh look, Ash is up," Misty said and got up.

"How're you doin'?" Gulliver asked.

"No mommy, I don't want to go back to school," Brock moaned, still in some sort of stupor before Misty pulled on his ear and brought him back to his senses.

"What happened?" Ash asked.

"You passed out," Gulliver said.

"I know that, but I mean, afterwards?" Ash asked.

"Oh, we called a doctor," Brock said. "All of the ones we called said that you were reacting badly to the Badge's powers, but they had no clue how to do anything to fix it. The only thing they could think of was to get you away from your Badges, but they said that they're pretty much stuck to you."

"Oh," Ash said. "Well, I feel a lot better now."

"Right, I bet you're hungry after all that," Brock said. "Let me see what I can whip up." He disappeared into another room that Ash guessed was a kitchen.

"Where's Wade?" Ash asked.

"Oh, he looked really upset when he lost," Misty said. "I almost felt sorry for him." She didn't sound sorry at all.

"I went to try an' arrest him, but he said that he had no plans to run anymore," Gulliver said. "I still had some people bind him and lead him to a holding cell."

"Right," Ash said.

"Was that the right thing to do?" Gulliver asked, probably scared that he may have acted out of line.

"No, that was probably the best thing to do and, I mean, you are my second-in-command, right?" Ash said. It was a bit of a joke, but Gulliver perked up anyway. "So then you guys took me in here?"

"Yeah, we were waiting for you to wake up," Misty said. "And Gulliver was filling us in on what this place is. I guess we all fell asleep."

"Wait- the fight happened yesterday, right? I haven't been asleep for more than a day, right?" Ash asked.

"Yeah, it was yesterday," Misty said.

"By the way, why the change of clothes?" Ash asked.

"Oh that," Misty said, snorting. "Apparently my shorts were far 'too short' and 'too revealing' according to that old guy and a lot of people here and they wanted me to wear a dress or something that at very least covered my knees, but I thought this was better as I could at least move in it."

Ash smiled. He had a good idea who that old guy was. "Yeah, they seem to be like that in Galea for some reason. At least it wasn't Dawn- though she might have agreed to wearing a dress."

They passed a few hours talking, with Brock and Misty filling Ash in on how they had ended up there and Ash giving them more details on what Galea was like. Breakfast was served and Ash was feeling a lot better.

It was about nine that they heard someone knocking on the door.

"I'll get it!" Gulliver said.

The door opened to reveal a woman wearing a female version of what Misty was wearing- in other words it was exactly the same except for a business skirt that went way past her knees. From what Ash could see, she had light blue hair wore in a bun. "I have a message for Sir Ash."

"Oh, well he's restin', so you can give it to me," Gulliver said.

"I have to give it only to him," she said.

"I guess you can let her in," Ash said. The door opened fully and the girl, who was probably no older than twenty, looked at Ash. Her eyes were the same color as her hair.

"You're- um, Lord Ketchum?" she asked.

Brock and Misty both guffawed. It was beyond hilarious for them; seeing their friend being called that.

"Yes," Ash said. "You're sweating a lot for some reason. Is it really hot outside?"

"No," the girl said. Her legs were trembling slightly too. Ash chalked it up to propaganda that the Gym Leaders were spreading about him. She had probably been expecting someone more impressive or rather, someone far more terrifying than Ash. "I was told to give this message only to you."

"Oh, it's okay, they're my friends, you can tell them stuff too," Ash said.

The girl glanced around. "I… I… understand that, b-b-but this is the sort of news meant for y-your ears only."

"Okay, so could you guys go into the kitchen or something?" Ash asked. He didn't really care, but he guessed that if she was being so insistent they might as well humor her.

"Okay," Gulliver said, who seemed to have caught on.

"Well, I have thought of a new recipe right now that we can try," Brock said. "Do you want to come too, Pikachu?"

"Pika pii!" Pikachu said and went off with Brock.

Once the two of them were alone, the girl approached the bed, which Ash found odd; he could hear a message from across the room just as easily.

"I have your message here," she said once she was at his bedside and reached into her pocket.

She then took out a knife and lunged at Ash's neck.

Ash felt his Badges rumble with power, and the knife break into fragments before it could touch his skin. The girl dropped the knife's handle as if it had burned her hand, and now grabbed Ash by the throat and began suffocating him, putting one hand over his mouth so he couldn't shout for help.

Ash tried to break free, but the girl's grip was as hard as iron and he had been weakened due to his episode. He figured it was futile trying after a minute of it didn't do anything to loosen her grip.

By then his lungs were screaming for air. He noticed that oddly enough, it was raining… no, no, that wasn't rain. His assailant was crying and the tears were falling on him.

"You deserve to die…" he heard her say. "You're a monster."

Just as he thought that he was about to lose consciousness as the world began to blur, his Badges rumbled again, and he felt a searing-hot flame emerge from them and make a hole in the assassin's abdomen as big as a quarter.

The girl fell off the bed, screaming in pain.

Once Ash had a few deep breaths, he screamed as loudly as he could for his friends.

They all rushed in and saw the girl lying on the floor, who was sobbing.

"What happened?" Brock asked.

"She… just tried to kill me," Ash said.

"What?" Gulliver said- sounding really shocked. "But how? I mean, don't the Badges protect you and all? So what would the point be?"

"They did," Ash said. "Otherwise I wouldn't be alive." Once he had calmed down somewhat and gotten some air into his lungs, he tried climbing out of bed to get a good look at his attacker.

"Um, guys," Brock said, looking at the girl. "She's has a hole in her stomach. I'm not a people doctor, but based on how much blood she's losing right now, I think she injured her inferior vena cava or abdominal aorta. She's going to bleed to death in minutes if we don't get someone."

"I'll go try to get a doctor," Gulliver said.

"No, let me try to heal her first," Ash said. He took a deep breath and then tried drawing on the power of his Badges.

Immediately, his previous symptoms came back even worse, and along with them there was the accompanying sensation that his skull was going to burst. And that was when he had only tapped into a small amount of their power. He stopped trying and instantly felt much better.

"I can't," Ash said. "I can't draw any more power. I'm sorry, if I try to heal her, it's going to end up killing me first."

"I don't get it," Misty said. "You could make a wound like that but you can't fix it?"

"No, I didn't do that," Ash sobbed. "The Badges did. If an attacker's too vicious, they eliminate the threat. And that's different because it's an automatic thing they do, they'd do it even if I was asleep or unconscious. But I can't consciously draw on their power anymore."

"Leave it anyway," the girl said, opening her eyes to send a last hateful glance at Ash. "I don't want to live and be tortured..."

"Why'd you do this?" Ash asked.

"I- I had a family in Hawthorne City," she said. "They died in the fire because of you… I heard that you were sick… and I knew I would probably fail, but I wanted to try. You're a monster… we'll never forgive you. Why couldn't you just leave us alone?"

With that, she closed her eyes, but the tears were still flowing down her face.

"You can try to get a doctor," Brock said. "But I think it's too late." Gulliver left anyway to try.

"What's Hawthorne City?" Misty asked.

Ash frowned and told them about Hawthorne City and what had happened to him. He was in tears by the end of it.

"And she's right, it's all my fault," Ash said. "I know I wasn't the one who burnt the city to the ground, but it might as well have been!"

"Ash, you can't blame yourself," Brock said. "I mean, you didn't mean for those people to get hurt."

"But people _do_ get hurt!" Ash said. "And they keep getting hurt because I- just because I kept wanting to go back! I wanted to go back home, go back to my family and friends so bad… that I went ahead and didn't even think about what was happening to other people and _their_ families. She's right, I should've just left everyone alone after I beat Marley. I should've agreed to the same Accord that the other Gym Leaders did. I wouldn't get to see you guys again… but then so many people wouldn't have to suffer…" The tears didn't stop flowing. They had been bottled up inside Ash for too long. For far too long.

"Ash… I don't know all about what you've been through, and I guess I can't really understand right now," Misty said. "But Ash, you've freed the people from the Gym Leaders… What I mean to say is that Wade was the best of them right, and he kidnapped us and tried to steal your Greninja!"

"Yeah, the Gym Leaders are terrible," Ash said. "But the people are used to it. Go outside! Look around! Go to some small village in Linnea's territory and see if anyone cared that I won. The average guy on the street doesn't care. Most of them don't, or were even better off before."

"Yeah, Ash, I think that's kind of because they didn't know any better," Brock said.

"And they won't know better," Ash said. "Now that a lot of them are dead! And her," he said, pointing to the girl. "She's probably gone already, and… she didn't deserve to die! I don't even know if I'm worthy. I can't control the Badges… and I think I know why now. Celera told me that the weak-willed can't use their powers. And the thing is, these problems have started ever since I beat Linnea, I haven't stopped feeling guilty. Someone like Emily wouldn't have worried like I have. I- I keep thinking, what would my mom think if she knew what I'd done since I got here? What would Professor Oak think? Heck, what would _Team Rocket_ think, because they haven't done anything this bad?"

"Okay, Ash, first of all," Misty said. "You're not a bad person. Brock and I have known you since basically forever, and I bet there are over a hundred people around the world who would say that you are a good person."

"Plus, you cant' beat yourself up about feeling bad," Brock said. "Only a psychopath wouldn't feel bad about so many people dead. And you're not a psychopath."

"Ash, you've been stuck in some sort of weird land where apparently murder and theft are endorsed by the ruling authorities," Misty said. "Almost anyone could've got lost here- literally and morally- but you still have never done anything bad to anyone that you could've avoided."

"But that doesn't change the fact that indirectly everything happened _because_ I was here," Ash said. "I never wanted to be here in the first place. But once I was here, well, what if I'd just stopped somewhere along the line? I know there was the deal with the grain and them not giving it to us, but Linnea was willing to make a deal for it if I signed their Accord."

"And then what would you do?" Brock asked. "Sit there for all eternity and leave Galea to the mercy of the other Gym Leaders? You would've just ended up like Wade did Ash, wanting to be good and to do something but you wouldn't be able to do it when the time came."

Ash thought about it, and the more that he did, he realized that in a way, he could see himself growing up to be Wade. It was actually quite remarkable really, how easily he could imagine himself in Wade's shoes, when day in and day out he'd be exposed to the harshness of Galean life and only able to change a part of it. It made him wonder… when Wade had started out fifty years ago as a Gym Leader, what had he wanted to do? What had he aspired for? And just what had made him support the other Gym Leaders?

"And what's important Ash?" Misty asked. "That one part of Galea is free, under you? Or that we free all of Galea and bring in a new era, huh? And anyway, we both know that no matter what happened, Ash, you wouldn't have given up on finding your friends. You could never abandon us."

"That's what makes you a dork," Brock said. "But you're our dork."

Ash let out a groan that seemed to be a cross between a sob and a chuckle. "Thanks guys."

Both Brock and Misty got on the bed to embrace him. "We'll be here for you Ash," Brock said.

"Yup," Misty said. "Always!"

"Pika pii!" Pikachu said and sent a mild shock across Ash's hand that travelled up his arm to his elbow and made him smile for some reason. When did Pikachu learn how to do that?

"So you could try smiling for once," Brock said.

Ash had to admit that if felt nice after all this time, having some people who really understood him and who he could talk to. Two minutes later though, he decided to address the Donphan in the room. 'Yeah, see guys, I can't really smile right now, I don't know if maybe you guys kind of forgot, but THERE'S A DEAD BODY ON THE FLOOR!"

"Yeah, that is pretty disturbing," Brock said. "And Gulliver isn't back yet. What's taken him so long?"

Gulliver had been delayed as there the motorboat they had rented was out of gas, and his Psyduck apparently didn't like swimming for some reason. He could've called someone from the phone in the cabin but sadly hadn't thought of that.

* * *

 _Forty-Five Years Ago..._

The sun shined brightly outside, but little save darkness was there in the small house.

The man trudged home, passing through the surrounding fields. He had a worried, haggard face.

For sixteen generations, his family had passed down the small farm which was present on the outskirts of Constantinople. It was passed down from father to son traditionally.

The man once had a son.

The man entered his house, where he saw his wife setting up the meal. The meal always looked small to him, because he always expected a third person to be there.

"How was it?" his wife asked him.

"There is still no sign of him," the man said. "Lady Selena herself has tried looking- she cares for her students, but has come back empty-handed. He has perhaps gone to some other domain."

"I see," his wife said, looking even more crestfallen than she usually did. "Perhaps he will be happy where he is." The man didn't mention the more plausible alternative, that the boy was dead.

The meal was eaten without aplomb. There was some good news- the harvest was going very well, but neither of them smiled or laughed. Neither had smiled truly for the last ten years.

For they had once had a son.

The man then went and wandered the rooms throughout the house.

The sun shined brightly outside, but little save darkness was there in the small house.

The house was small, though it appeared huge to the man, for one person was absent from it.

He found himself in an unused room, which had been left untouched for so long the dust obscured everything. Tears fell down his face.

"My son! When will you return to me?" he cried out as regret tore through his heart.

 **A/N: Wow, this chapter turned a whole lot more depressing than I had planned.  
**

 **aleking74, I fixed that mistake.**

 **As a note here, I went back through the earlier chapters, Marley and Thomdolt's arc and noticed several mistakes and I spent some time cleaning them up, fixing up some things that contradicted what I wrote later, and then added a few lines (though the plot is still the same). So if you go through them and wonder why they're different, well that explains why.**

 **Also, from now on it's going to be an update per week as before.**

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked! Happy New Year everyone!**


	46. VS Vanessa I

**A/N: Thanks for the review, Julie Togepi. The boy is the same one at the first chapter, for more info, you'll just have to wait.**

"Guess what? Mommy's home!" came a far too shrill voice that made the three ladies sitting around the table jump.

"Lady Vanessa," Elizabeth, with crimson-red hair and sea green eyes said while getting up- and her colleagues soon followed her example. "We were not expecting you today."

"Well, you know how things are, I wasn't really going to come this time you know, but there was a trader off in Sakhmet who said that Selena wanted to talk to me while I was wandering around, and as soon as I turn around to ask him what- guess what happens? He vanishes! Just like that apparently, so I came here wondering what all of this was about."

"Well then, this is a pleasant surprise," Mary, with raven dark hair that flowed to her waist and a wearing a silver tiara adorned with Swanna gave a most genuine smile, revealing only a part of her pearly-white teeth as any _proper_ lady should. The others imitated her, but then of course, faking a smile was second-nature when you were employed in a high position in Vanessa's domain.

"I know, it's so wonderful to see you all again," Vanessa said. "How are my girls doing?" She kissed each of them on each cheek once.

"We're fine, thank you," said Catherine, who had dirty blonde hair and the only one whose skin showed signs of age. "I think you'll be pleased to know that the governance of the realm proceeds as you would have wanted it."

"Of course, of course," Vanessa said. She, herself, looked hardly older than twenty with curly brown hair that extended to her neck. She wore nothing that distinguished her as a Gym Leader, just a black monk's robe with a hood to hide her face when necessary.

Vanessa took a glance around the room. Her eyes slid over the dozen or so guards as if they weren't there. They wore helmets that resembled the heads of a Feraligatr, and armor that resembled overlapping fish scales. The armor wasn't metal of course (at least, not anymore in this day and age) but a special polymer meant to be bulletproof.

Vanessa sighed. This hall was one of her offices, but she had apparently forgotten to remove the order that no one enter her offices without permission except during the bi-annual meetings, because the place was covered in dust. It had been hastily dusted an hour before, but it seemed her orders had been followed to the letter.

Vanessa didn't notice the three ladies were still standing and were waiting for her to sit or give an indication that they could sit, but Vanessa didn't catch on.

"Where is the phone?" Vanessa asked.

"Over there," Catherine said. The phone had been covered with a tarp, which was hastily removed by one of the guards.

"I need to call Selena," Vanessa said. "I wonder what it was that was so important. Has something happened in our realm?"

"No," Mary said. "Your domain continues to work properly under our management."

Vanessa didn't do any of the work of running her domain herself. She preferred to wander about, seeing sights and doing whatever pleased her. As her territory was very large, she divided it into three portions. The northernmost part was rugged mountains and under Elizabeth's governance, which was why she was wearing a dark blue deel common to the nobility in the area. The southernmost part, was under Mary's rule and was mostly dense forests, and Mary was dressed in a full light green dress that reached her ankles. The middle part which was mostly desert fell under Catherine, who wore a plain white tunic, though it was adorned with gold ornaments.

"But, there has been something that has come to our attention…" Mary said.

"Yes, well, let's call Selena first," Vanessa said and grabbed a chair and sat down. While she was fiddling with the controls, her three regents looked at each other, wondering whether or not they should also sit down. "Oh, it's one of her aides, yes, tell Selena that I need to talk to her. Or that she wanted to talk to me, and then I- well, it's complicated, just be a dear and call her, would you?"

She then turned around to face the others. "Oh, do sit down, dears, you don't need to be like that around Mommy all the time, so stiff and formal!"

The three of them sat down, but Catherine rolled her eyes when Vanessa wasn't looking. None of them appreciated the condescending use of the word 'mommy' from someone who was, in their opinion, far less suited to rule than themselves.

"Oh, Selena! Sweetie, you don't look so well," Vanessa said as Selena came on the screen.

"Does it really take so long to respond to my calls? Where have you been all this time?" Selena asked, looking about as exasperated with Vanessa as her three regents felt.

"Well, you see dear, I haven't been in touch with anyone important for the last two years," Vanessa said. "But I heard from your messenger in Sakhmet and came. What happened? You have dark circles under your eyes- have you been sleeping properly?"

Selena sagged in her chair and let out an exaggerated sigh. "Oh, you don't know what kind of problem we're in, do you? Have you heard of Ash Ketchum?"

"Who?" Vanessa asked.

"You really haven't heard a word about him? He's the talk of Galea." Selena asked. "Well, you see- well, around eight months ago it turns out that a young boy by the name of Ash Ketchum got through our barrier, and he managed to topple Marley."

"What?" Vanessa practically screamed. If Selena didn't know any better, she would've said that Vanessa's surprise was too exaggerated and dramatic to be genuine. "But how?"

"I don't know," Selena said. "Somehow the barrier's getting weaker also. All of us are going to have to reinforce within a year, rather than centuries like we'd hoped."

"So… someone's messed with the barrier too?" Vanessa asked. "Wait… I know I shouldn't say this- but do you think maybe Wade did it? It kind of makes sense…"

Selena shook her head. "I thought so too in the beginning, but he wasn't involved at all apparently. On the contrary, he attempted to stop him. Right now though, I'm beginning to suspect His Majesty."

Vanessa gasped. "Selena, sweetie, that's treason!"

Selena frowned. "That may be, but I don't see any other explanation. His Majesty was the one who led us and spearheaded the creation of the barrier in the first place. And who else could have done it? It would have taken someone with knowledge of the barrier to do so. I just don't know why he would do something along those lines…"

"So, well then, have you tried bargaining with the child? Is Marley dead?" Vanessa asked.

"Any attempt at negotiating with him has failed," Selena said. "He has just recently defeated Wade and controls five out of Galea's eight realms. I do not doubt that he will be coming to you to take your domain as well."

"Why?' Vanessa asked. "What does he want?"

"Simply to rule all of Galea, though in his ignorance he doesn't realize that he could very well cause Gaela's doom," Selena said. "He has to be stopped…." It was here that Vanessa could've sworn she almost heard Selena sob. Really, Selena sobbing? "I've tried everything, and His Majesty is of no help at all. The boy proceeds despite everything I've thrown at him… all food supply from Linnea's earlier territory has been cut off. I must thank you by the way, for continuing to supply my territory."

"Huh?" Vanessa said and turned for a second towards her three regents for an explanations.

"Lady Vanessa, in your absence, Catherine and I took the liberty of deciding to supply Lady Selena with food," Mary said. "We increased production, increased work quotas, and managed to fill our own granaries and a good amount of hers as well."

Vanessa's territory wasn't well suited for farming- at least not as much as that of Linnea's, but years of irrigation projects had helped convert parts of the desert into arable land that were sufficient to meet their own needs and a small part that could be exported.

Of course, Mary left out the fact that they were selling food at inflated prices to Selena on account of their being a shortage, as compensation for better equipment they were using, and a plethora of other reasons- and pocketing the extra amount for themselves.

"Well, that was a good choice," Vanessa said with the tone of a kindergarten teacher telling a student that his drawing was wonderful. "Mommy made the right choice with you three."

"Anyway," Selena said, "my point is that you need to start practicing, Vanessa. If His Majesty isn't doing anything- or worse, is the one behind all of this- we're the only ones that Galea can rely on."

"Don't worry at all, honey," Vanessa said. "M- I'll have the entire situation under control. I'll begin running mock Pokemon Contests in anticipation for the boy."

Selena nodded. "Than you… Vanessa. You know, I've never really approached this as a topic, but I've always considered you as one of my true friends…" Selena flashed the smallest of smiles at Vanessa.

"Aww, sweetie, that's so cute! And of course I also think you're one of my besties," Vanessa said, her eyes practically shining. "Keep smiling- it looks so good on you! And don't you worry about a thing. I'll take care of it."

"Thank you," Selena said.

They continued talking but little of it was important, and Selena soon disconnected, leaving Vanessa to go and consult with her regents on what to do about Ash Ketchum.

* * *

"Are you sure the call's been disconnected?" Selena asked.

"Yes, milady," Jenkins said.

"Good," Selena said and swiveled around to face him. "Well, you were monitoring the conversation. Do you think I put on a convincing act?"

Jenkins nodded. "Yes, milday, I do believe that Lady Vanessa bought it hook, line, and sinker, as they say."

"But gods really, can she truly be so stupid?" Selena asked. "How can she know nothing about Ash? By this point all of Galea must be talking about him? You know, Linnea and I once had a bet on who we thought was dumber- Vanessa or Freyja. Linnea's in custody somewhere, but I have no doubt now that it's Vanessa. At least Freyja took the time to govern her domain herself."

Jenkins nodded. "Right you are, ma'am."

"I think at maximum she'll be able to hold on for another month or two," Selena said. "What of Alan Lazar?"

"Are spies say that he fled once Wade was deposed," Jenkins said. "But we're still tracking him. As he's probably traveling alone right now and not under Wade's protection, it is possible to have him assassinated now."

"See to it as soon as possible," Selena said.

She dismissed Jenkins and turned around to face the blank telephone screen.

She could see her own reflection. There were dark circles under her eyes. She hadn't faked that at least.


	47. VS Vanessa II

**A/N: Thanks for the review, Julie Togepi!**

Ash's first point of business was to finally do something about carrying far too many Badges. Walking around with five of them was like walking around suffering with a hundred degree fever all the time. He knew he had to give one away, and after some considerable thought he decided that it would be best to give Wade the Torrential Badge back.

It wasn't a decision that Ash had come to lightly, and it shocked quite a lot of people that he was placing power back into the hands of one of the Gym Leaders. Perhaps the person who as the most shocked was Wade himself.

Wade had been a in a cell- nothing too uncomfortable when Ash told him about his decision.

"Are you joking?" the man asked. His eyebrows were so raised they were practically in danger of falling off his face.

"No," Ash said. "Look- I know you went ahead and did some bad things towards the end- and I'm still pretty mad about it…. But the thing is that ever since I've gone and taken control, I've had people who worked for you protest. Mr. Jennings, Duke Hamnet say that- and well, even _I_ can tell that you've managed this place fairly. I have actual normal people starting rebellions because you've been overthrown- something I've never seen before with the others and that's when they know a rebellion is pointless now that I have the Torrential Badge. I could give it to someone else, but then I thought that no one was experienced enough. Gulliver certainly isn't, and Mr. Jennings may be but I can't be sure how anyone will become when they're given power. Except you. You've had the chance to do anything you wanted for the last thirty-three years but you didn't. I know you went ahead and kidnapped Brock and Misty… but I also sort of see where you were coming from, and they weren't hurt in the end." Deep down, Ash wanted to forgive Wade because it would make it so much easier to forgive himself for what had happened to Hawthorne City… because Ash believed that Wade truly had meant his friends no harm as Ash had meant no harm to Hawthorne city.

"And you would trust me after all of this?" Wade asked. "How would you be sure that I wouldn't turn against you?"

"I'll have you sign a standard stewardship contract," Ash says. "You know, I have one here that Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet drew up. It says that you'll get the Badge but I still have real ownership and can ask for it back anytime I want, you have to do what I say, you know, the usual they tell me when you appoint someone as trustee."

Wade read the contract and it was then that he realized that Ash wasn't playing some sort of weird practical joke on him- he was deadly serious! Wade took a moment to look at Ash.

"I must say, Lord Ash Ketchum, that this has been twice that I've misjudged you," Wade said.

"What?" Ash asked.

"At first, when I sought to challenge you, I was sure that it was your Greninja that would be valuable to you- more so than your friends," Wade asked. "And I assumed that you valued your Greninja for it being rare like the other Gym Leaders do- I thought that you thought of your Pokemon as objects to be coveted. But I saw true love and determination for them when I fought you," Wade said. He bowed his head. "It was a truly… moving experience, if I should say so."

"Oh," Ash said. "Well yeah, it's true, I do care about them a lot…" As Ash thought about it, he realized that there was hardly any depth that he wouldn't go to for his Pokemon.

"You need not say that for your actions spoke that clearly and loudly enough," Wade said. "And that was not all. I also saw the trust you placed in your friends- like Gulliver, and how much you care about Brock and Misty. While I was sitting here in my cell, I thought to myself, 'Here is a boy who truly cares about his friends. Looking at him, one can tell that though he'd forgive someone who had done damage to him- he'd never forgive one who had tried to do something against his friends.' I had kidnapped those close to you, and so I never expected you to be do something like give me my power back. But here I see you, and even though I have done harm to your friends… you would still be kind to me? And not even that, I don't know how, but I can tell that while you do still care about them you somehow have managed to rise above a single incident like that to give me a second chance." Wade then got up and bowed. "I'm surprised to see such maturity from someone so young."

Ash hadn't been expecting that kind of reaction. "So? Will you take the position? Do you accept the contact?"

"I was _going_ to refuse," Wade said. "Regardless of the fact that it would meant that I would rot in a cell forever. I would have never agreed to help one who worked for Galea's destruction…"

"Can't you talk about it?" Ash asked, though he knew the answer.

Wade shook his head. "Our Badges bind us to our oaths even if we lose them. Like I said, I wouldn't have done so before… but being here has given me time to think… and I have reached a conclusion that I probably should have reached long ago. Allow me to tell you a sort of story, Sir Ash. Long ago, when we first forged the Accord I dreamed of finally bringing peace to Galea. No longer would the people suffer cyclical changes in the Gym Leaders- it was something that the Elite Four had for some reason not done. I thought that my other colleagues shared the same goal even if there methods were a bit cruel, and in the end, I reasoned, it was necessary to keep the Barrier from falling and leading to the destruction of Galea."

"But, it has occurred to me that I have been wrong on one account," Wade said. "I assumed that _you_ wanted to tear down the Barrier, and that Selena wished to save it. I intended to remain loyal to her… until my mind caught up on a tiny detail. I believe that you were given a Pokemon in your battle with Freyja? And that it was sent through Selena's own system?"

"Yeah," Ash said.

Wade nodded. "The problem that comes is that there is no one in all of Galea that I know who is capable of hacking into Selena's computer system. And then it occurred to me- you must be wondering who it was that sent you your Roserade- that the only one capable of hacking into Selena's computer system and doing something like giving you a Pokemon instead of a normal Quick Ball… is Lady Selena herself. Selena was the one who gave you that Roserade and helped you beat Freyja. It couldn't have happened without her blessing, I am guessing that the Roserade is a Pokemon that she trained herself. It is quite powerful- and who else but a Gym Leader could train a Pokemon like that in these times?"

"What?" Ash asked. "B-but that doesn't make any sense!"

"I thought so too at first," Wade said. "But then I remembered just what a cunning Delfox Selena is. Think about something else, Lord Ash Ketchum, it was not I who brought you to Galea, and it wasn't one of the Gym Leaders whom you've faced already. That leaves only three Gym Leaders… and remember, a Gym Leader is the only one capable of doing so. And one whose domain borders near the ocean so that rules out Vanessa."

"That means…. It was the Eighth Gym Leader?" Ash asked.

Wade shook his head again. "No, Ash, what I'm trying to tell you is that the only logical thing to assume is that it was _Selena_ herself who brought you into Galea. Her domain also controls a part of the sea, and she has studied the Barrier long enough to be able to bring someone from outside into Galea."

"But why?" Ash asked. "She's been trying to attack me every time-"

"Exactly," Wade said. "And therein lies the cunning in her plan. With her left hand, Selena helps the other Gym Leaders in trying to fight you and with her right hand, she secretly ensures that you prevail against any of them. She's been manipulating you."

"Again, but why though?" Ash asked.

"For that, I think we need to think a bit more," Wade said. "And before that, we need some info about Mr. Alan Lazar. He was Selena's left-hand man before he defected, and he told me two crucial things- that Selena intended to wage war against His Majesty, and that there was a loophole added to the Accord later to allow her to do so."

"Really?" Ash asked. He suddenly realized something. "Selena… I remember that she ordered some siege weapons from Thomdolt and I thought that she intended to use them against me… but what if they were for him instead?"

"I have been thinking about what the loophole would be," Wade said. "And I've come to but a single conclusion regarding the matter. It must only activate in a specific circumstance otherwise Selena would have launched an attack long ago. She's clearly waiting for something… and I believe that it involves you, Sir Ash."

"Me?" Ash asked.

"Yes, otherwise why would she go through all this trouble to try and get you here to Galea?" Wade asked, slamming the table in his impatience. "Think about it- the real loophole in the Accord, even if Selena had not added one herself, was someone like you! Someone from outside would be able to threaten His Majesty and Selena immensely, and they probably would've wanted a clause against that. So, Selena must have convinced His Majesty to let it in as a loophole against a loophole- I cannot know for sure what the clause it, but it is a good bet to say that it probably says that if enough of the Gym Badges change hands or become under one person… then some parts of the Accord are null and void. And _that_ is why Selena has been secretly egging you on to challenge the other Gym Leaders…. she tried to starve you out even though if you think about it such a decision doesn't make any sense at all- trying to starve you out would've just turned you against the other Gym Leaders when you might have been comfortable just staying where you were- she couldn't have known how badly you wanted to go back home. But she made it happen anyway forcing you to go against the other Gym Leaders even if you hadn't wanted to go back and decided so somewhere along the way. She basically ensured that you would go around and challenge enough of the Gym Leaders for some reason… some reason and I believe that is because she needs you to collect enough Badge for the clause to take effect so that she can strike at His Majesty. And like the two-faced Mawile she is, she has done so without arising suspicion at all that she is involved somehow."

"Then… what do I do?" Ash asked.

"First of all, get rid of the Pokedex device I hear you carry," Wade said. "She no doubt has it recording everything you say and transmitting it to her. It would have been incredibly easy for her to have tracked your every move… she would know almost everything about you if you have been carrying it around with you."

A shiver went down Ash's spine. If what Wade said was correct…. well, he _had_ carried his Pokedex around with him all the time. "But… I don't know how to destroy it. I mean, this is a new model they made to be nearly indestructible. I mean, after all stuff I've been through, I've never gotten a scratch on one of the old ones. And I don't want to break it."

"Then you must prevent it from transmitting," Wade said. "You can do so easily by placing it in a…. I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the word for it- ah, yes, a Faraday Cage! Wrap your Pokedex around some soft cloth, and then wrap a layer of aluminum foil around it and another layer of cloth again. That or you can of course ask for a Faraday Cage to put it in until you are sure that Selena will not spy on you. And leaving that aside, as to the reason why I have decided to forego my allies and join you is that this means that Selena herself was the one who is causing these disturbances in the Barrier. She never wanted a realm of peace and must have been planning this since the very beginning. And, thanks to her selfishness, the Barrier will come down. And His Majesty is no better for having done close to nothing."

"I'm sorry- but what happens exactly when the Barrier comes down?" Ash asked. "You keep saying that everyone'll die… but how?"

"I cannot say," Wade said. "And since Selena seems to have ignored the risk of such simply so she can try and rule all of Galea for herself, I see no reason to continue supporting her." Wade signed the contract, and repeated the words at the end.

"I, Wade, do hereby accept stewardship of the Torrential Badge from Sir Ash, its rightful owner and my new liege lord. May I perform my duty as ordered by him, and let me never forget that the Badge is not mine."

The Torrential Badge left Ash's chest as Ash signed the contract as well and floated over to Wade who caught it in his fist.

Ash suddenly felt so much room suddenly didn't appear to be so oppressively dark or so cold. More important than that though, Ash for the first time felt like he could eventually let go of what had happened earlier when Samantha (that had been her name, as he had found out) had tried to kill her. Oh, he'd never forget her face- and it would haunt his dreams for practically forever, but it now seemed like something he could move on from.

"Thank you Sir Ash," Wade said. "And I have to say that I am personally quite surprised at how friendly you seem to be with your staff. Now, I've always been one for treating them nicely… but I've gotten into the habit of thinking of them as mere underlings for quite some time."

Ash shrugged. "I just guess that's how I am."

As Ash left, Wade muttered to himself, "I wonder… could he possible be the one? The one whom the Elite Four were looking for?"

Wade sighed, shook his head and realized that he hadn't told Ash one thing: that if he was correct, the only way for them to foil Selena's plan was for Ash to stop collecting Gym Badges and stop trying to leave Galea.

But he chuckled as he also realized that doing so would be useless.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading and do please review! Originally I hadn't planned for Wade to get his Gym Badge back... but on thought with the way the story was moving it seemed like a logical choice.**


	48. VS Vanessa III

**A/N: Thanks for the review Julie Togepi! I didn't want to put Brock or Misty for reasons, mainly because neither of them are any better than Ash is at running things.  
**

The more Ash thought about what Wade had said, the more it occurred to him that Wade was probably right. He had told Wade's theory to everyone he trusted and most of them agreed that it did make sense.

Ash's Pokedex, therefore, was placed in a container that blocked any electromagnetic waves from leaving it. Ash hadn't wanted to leave his Pokedex- though he hadn't realized it, it was almost as important to him as his Pokemon. He had had one as long as he could remember and he found himself often reaching for it only to realize with a jolt that it wasn't there anymore.

The thing was that if Selena really did have access to it- well, his Pokedex had a large record of his information. She would probably know a lot about Ash- and even more since it had a camera and microphone.

After Ash gave the Torrential Badge to Wade, he felt better and then he realized something: since he now had Wade's Badge with him (well, technically not with him, but you get the idea), there was no need at all to try and get through Vanessa's domain.

Wade controlled most of the ocean, but Selena controlled a part that encircled the eighth Gym Leader's domain. This meant that Ash could go through Wade's domain and enter Selena's domain directly, or for that matter, go straight for His Majesty.

And so, he found himself taking his Greninja with him to surf near the border of Selena's domain. He didn't intend to go inside by himself just yet, rather, he just wanted to see if it was possible, because he had reports that there had recently been some strange sightings near the border.

Ash saw it half a mile before he reached it. Oddly enough, at the border, the water itself seemed to change color from dark blue to slightly greenish… but Ash gave up trying to explain it and guessed it was one of those weird ways that nature itself in Galea seemed to mark borders between the domains.

Surrounding it was a large barrier, but Ash had come prepared for that. He grasped his four Badges and prepared to blast a hole in the Barrier like he had back when he had gone to lay siege to Aroughs.

As he drew on their powers this time, Ash suddenly felt something different. He had made no progress in breaking this small barrier, so he drew on their power even more.

Nothing happened.

Ash frowned and tried drawing on every iota of Power the Badges had, and this made his head hurt slightly but he frowned and tried focusing anyway.

The smallest of holes- hardly big enough for an apple- appeared in the wall separating him from Selena's realm- and the Eighth Gym Leader's one beyond it which was his final target.

He sighed and let go of their power as he couldn't make something large enough to get through and now it had started seriously hurting his head and he began sweating. He had just recovered from whatever had happened with the Torrential Badge- he didn't need a relapse at this time.

Ash scratched his head- this was very weird. It had worked so easily before…

His Greninja seemed to be able to tell that something was wrong and made a few small noises.

"It's alright," Ash said. "Let's go back."

* * *

"And then I couldn't get through- I don't think anything bigger than a Rattata could," Ash finished telling the small gathering that had assembled at his office in Linnea's territory.

Gulliver, Brock, Misty, and Duke Hamnet were all physically present. Wade, Celera, and Mr. Jennings were joining in using the help of telephones.

"Sir Ash, I've never heard of anything like that," Mr. Jennings said. "I can't see why Selena would be able to keep you out when Linnea could not."

"I've never heard of something like that either," Celera said. "As long as Selena has the power of only her Badge she shouldn't be able to create something strong enough to keep someone like you out."

Everyone looked confused… except for Wade who had a dark expression on his face.

"You know something, Wade?" Ash asked. It didn't matter how high up Ash was or what Wade was now- Ash hadn't changed how he talked to or addressed anyone.

"I… cannot explain fully," Wade said. "But I believe that Selena has made this new barrier in the same way the great and original Barrier that surrounds Galea was made… it will be difficult to break through."

"How though?" Celera asked. "She only has one Badge… And wasn't the big Barrier made using the powers of all eight Badges?"

"I'm sorry, but I cannot say," Wade said. "I had agreed to keep parts of Lady Selena's identity a secret… but you should know Sir Ash that she is more powerful than any normal Gym Leader…"

"What do we do then?" Ash asked.

"The only thing that remains open- defeat and usurp Lady Vanessa," Wade said. "That would be my advice."

"Yeah, but if Selena can hide forever that won't make much of a difference," Ash said. "I can't handle having more Badges. If we need more power to get through, I won't be able to do it alone."

"True," Wade said. "But, I would warn you, even if Selena wasn't keeping you out to try and not challenge Selena. Lord Ash, she is a formidable Trainer…no, that is an understatement. I do not think that there is anyone in Galea who can match her skill. You would lose if you were to go against her. It would be no contest at all. Defeating Vanessa would mean that you could train in the harsh climate of her domain to prepare yourself for Selena. Also, I believe that if you defeat Vanessa, it would trigger some loophole in the treaty that Selena intends to exploit. She would move out into the open then, and you would be able to challenger her- though again, I would advise against that. Do not battle Lady Selena, Sir Ash- instead attempt to bypass her and go directly for His Majesty."

Ash frowned. "She's really strong?" he asked.

Wade said, "You have no idea. Truly, I wish I could tell you… I believe you would probably never reach her level no matter how long you tried. "

"Well, I guess I'll take your word for it then," Ash said. There was always the remote possibility that Wade was lying, but Ash didn't think that Wade was hiding something. The others did look at him suspiciously though. "I know you can't tell me who His Majesty is, but is he a good battler too?"

Wade said, "I haven't seen him in the last thirty-two years, but at the time, he was no where near Selena's level. He was a lucky opportunist that managed to become a Gym Leader due to chance, much like Freyja."

"On that note, I also have some news regarding Selena," Celera said. "We found Alan Lazar's body in a lake around fifty miles from here. The obvious candidate is Selena, though we couldn't find any evidence."

"He didn't know much for that matter," Wade said. "She probably didn't do it to silence him, but rather because he'd been a traitor. I'd have done the same if I were in her position."

Misty and Brock glanced at Wade nervously. No one else, Ash included, was very comfortable with what Wade has just said.

Wade sighed. "I do not have to like doing it, but it would be necessary. Treason is a crime that can and should be meted out with death."

"Okay then, the plan is that we go for Vanessa," Ash said. "But for that I'm going to need to figure out this Pokemon Contest stuff once and for all…"

* * *

With everything falling into place and no where to go but Vanessa's territory, Ash found himself putting off the date for his battle with her further and further off as time went on.

His immediate desire to go back to Kanto was washed away as with Brock and Misty with him, he no longer felt as if there was a huge void in his heart. Of course the urge to go back home was still there- it was always there- it was just easier for Ash to decide to spend another day with his two friends whom he hadn't seen in a very long time rather than train for Pokemon Contest of all things.

And anyway, as long as he had the two of them, it felt more like they were on some old adventure back in Kanto or Johto.

As such, two months passed without him making any real (zero) progress. Eventually Mr. Jennings managed to pester him enough to start doing something about things and so, Ash decided that, rather than going through the entire manual by himself he'd go with his earlier idea to make other people make a play out of things.

And so, a play was held in one of Linnea's finest gardens with a stage and everything. Misty and Brock decided to participate rather than watch.

Ash was the only one sitting in the audience- his Pokemon were jumping around and the servants and aides were standing. The play was going to be supplemented with basic props.

"So, let's talk about Pokemon Contests," Misty said, introducing the small skit. "While there are many forms of Pokemon Contests in Galea, the official one that will be used in a Gym Battle is this: There are five categories, namely, Cool, Smart, Cute, Beauty, and Tough. Each of them counts as a round, so to speak. Whoever wins three out of five is said to have won, and will get the Ribbon Badge."

Ash flicked a piece of popcorn into his mouth.

Then Brock took over. "Each of the rounds consists of two segments. The first one is an Appeal Round, in which Trainers pick one Pokemon and have a minute to put on a display, which is judged by a committee consisting of ten judges. Both you and Vanessa get to pick five people to be judges, and they all have to agree upon the Badges to be impartial no matter who they're from. This is worth one hundred points, ten by each judge. From the ten contestants, the four with the highest scores are chosen. Then we move on to round two, which is a battle round with each fight lasting three minutes. Each Trainer gets one hundred points each, which they'll lose as their Pokemon take hits. Again, moves that are based on the category will take away larger points from your opponent, and you'll lose points if you use a move that doesn't fall into the category. If your Pokemon is knocked out, you lose all the hundred points. If they both stand at the end of three minutes, the one with the highest total points from both rounds is the winner. This continues tournament style until a victor is chosen."

Ash had moved on to corn dogs now.

"An' that's not all," Gulliver said. "Each round involves ten people- since Vanessa's Gym Leader she gets to pick six from her side while we only get four. In the first round, if all four of the top scorers are from the same side, that side wins by default. Ya don't even have to participate yourself! Also, she gets another advantage- if two scorers finish in Round Two and they tie- it counts as a victory for whoever's on Vanessa's side instead of a tie."

Ash was licking an ice cream cone. It was apparently time for dessert.

"Ash! Did you hear _anything_ about what we were saying?" Misty asked.

"Sure did," Ash said. "Way clearer now. So I guess it's all pretty much in the bag since it'll eventually come down to battling."

"Not really," Brock said. "In order to even get to Round Two, we need a good score for someone from our side to even get in the top four, or we lose instantly without even battling."

Misty nodded. "And Ash, do you even know which moves belong in their respective categories for that matter?"

Ash groaned.

"From our data, we're assuming that Vanessa's Pokemon Trainers are rather weak," Brock said. "With the strongest being Vanessa herself. But you should still take part in the contest, as your Pokemon are still the strongest and eventually it would come down to that only… but you'd still need to get a high score yourself, plus, you can only use the same Pokemon for both rounds."

Ash nodded. "Then who're the other four who I should take along? D'ya think Wade might be good?"

* * *

While Ash had been relaxing and enjoying life, the same couldn't be said of Team Rocket. By the time three weeks had passed after Ash had appointed Wade as his regent, Team Rocket was in dire straits.

With their last coconut gone, they had resorted to foraging around the island, looking for any kind of moss or mushroom that might be edible.

Jessie and James were rather good at this sort of thing, despite having been raised in cities, as they were used to running out of funds and having no food aside from what they could get from the wilderness. Still, they had no luck, and James had forgotten his manual on edible plants- and as he pointed out to Jessie, there was no reason for anyone to assume that he'd need it while breaking into the Lumiose City Gym.

They had all gotten severe stomachaches after eating some berries that they had found- and had assumed they were safe since Meowth thought they were safe. The theory was that Meowth would be right thanks to Pokemon instinct.

Sadly, Meowth seemed to have lost most of his Pokemon instincts once he started watching reality TV shows.

As such, Jessie and James had only managed to find some bark stripped from trees that took quite some time to get used to digesting and wasn't very filling. If there was a single thing that they could be thankful for, it was that there was enough clean water as it seemed to rain with an odd periodic regularity on the island and it wasn't hard getting vessels to collect them.

One day, as they were laying about trying to conserve their energy, James noticed something approaching from the horizon.

He got up, but didn't want to tell Jessie or Meowth in case he was wrong about it- and so went for his binoculars.

"What happened?" Jessie asked him.

"I'm sure I saw something…" James said. "There's a boat! There's a boat!" He nearly began crying.

"Let me see!" Jessie said and tore the binoculars away from James.

They all ran out to shore and saw the boat growing larger as is it came closer to them.

It was a ragged, old, wooden fishing boat with a single dirty and tattered sail. Rows materialized out of its sides and began moving rhythmically. It soon became apparent that the boat was heading towards the island.

Rather than remain on shore, Jessie and James both decided to hide in the surrounding brush. Nearly starving they may have been, but they were still criminals with no clue as to where they were. They didn't want to wander off only to be captured… better to see who these people were first.

The boat looked even more ragged up close- it was clearly not a luxury vessel or one used for commerce by a wealthy merchant. Jessie rubbed her nose, the smell was overpowering even from where they were hidden.

About half a dozen people got off the boat- they were all dressed in striped rags. Jessie thought that a few of them looked like women.

From their resting point, Jessie and James were able to garner one thing: these people were criminals. No doubt about it- because as they say, a Dittto can always recognize its own kind- and from the way these people walked Jessie and James knew that they were people who lived outside the bounds of the law.

They disappeared into the brush on the island, and once they were out of sight Jessie, James, and Meowth snuck over to the boat.

Jessie and James, begin criminals, knew it was the smart thing not to go and expose themselves, and also knew that if they intended to steal this ship, now was the best time- when there would be fewer people on board.

But, given their lack of Pokemon, it occurred to them that it might be better to hide- especially given how they had no clue how many people they were facing.

They sneaked over to below deck where there was cargo including food that they gorged themselves on before finding a nondescript corner to wait for some new developments.

 **A/N: Sorry for the error last time. 'Lady Ash Ketchum' well he did pretend to be Ashley that one time. Eh, sorry for the errors that occasionally creep in, I try to be correct and exacting, but stuff like this happens.**

 **If you're wondering about what Wade said and if he's right or wrong, let me give you a hint- not all of what he's saying is right and not all of it is wrong either- but he thinks that everything he's telling is the truth. This applies to everything said by him in this chapter and the previous one.**

 **Also, I've already given an explanation for how Selena could have put up a special barrier. It's buried in here somewhere.**

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review!**


	49. VS Vanessa IV

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys!**

 **I have to say that I'm not a big fan of Pokemon Contests either. The ones in the game had very little purpose though I did kind of play them- the only problem I had with them in Ruby and Sapphire was the Pokeblock system- it was made in such a way that no matter how hard I tried, by the time I got to Master Rank, I always did worst in the appeals.**

 **I think the anime has the best contests and beats both the manga and the Games in that at least it includes some battles. Contests are better in something that tries to mirror real life since it gets a bit boring in the video games- but there are more possibilities of course in something like the anime.**

 **Of course, Vanessa gets an unfair advantage- but that's true for all Gym Leaders.**

 **Also, I've realized that maybe things have gotten a bit too complicated in the story and I wanted to keep it simple- which is why I didn't want to introduce a whole new set of rules on Pokemon Contests that were too complex so I mainly modeled them after what I remembered form the Ruby and Sapphire arc of the anime. Plus, anime contests are better than the others.  
**

Team Rocket, despite everything, had had a swell time on the ship.

Their main problems were getting cramps from staying in one spot for far too long- but otherwise they'd had a pleasant journey. From what they could tell, there were about a total of fifteen people on the vessel. Strangely enough, none of them seemed to have Pokemon- or they simply didn't use them for some reason.

That was good enough for them, because human eyes and ears were far easier to fool. And Jessie and James had loads of experience hiding back in Kanto.

It also meant that it would have been childishly easy for them to seize control of the ship if only they had but a single worthy Pokemon- but James had none and Jessie's Wobuffet was hardly in a position to be doing some attacking. Meowth could have been of some use but the thing was that he could only handle two people at most.

So, the days dragged on, and Jessie and James tried catching sachets of conversation to figure where they were. The people spoke words that they understood, but the accents and words weren't like those of people from Kalos- or any that they had heard of before.

Thankfully, their voyage wasn't too long and they seemed to dock somewhere in less than a week. It was easy for them to notice- it meant that the ship had stopped rocking.

So, once it was the dead of the night and when they didn't hear any activity, they left their hiding place and aimed to leave the ship.

Now, if only they had kept quiet and left- they would have probably been able to get away.

But, Jessie and James couldn't help but notice that just one room on deck was locked. It was currently being guarded, but the guard was too far away in dreamland to notice them.

Now, as this was the _only_ locked room they had seen in the ship, they assumed, that, of course, it had something valuable in it. And so, Meowth picked the lock- something that was second nature to him by now- and they took a peek inside.

James had to stifle a gasp… inside, there were was a huge crate filled with flashy coins.

"Is that real gold?" Jessie asked. "But it can't be!" The gold, in total, had to be worth more than ten thousand nuggets!

"Let the expert check," Meowth said and stealthily removed one and bit into it. "Yup, as pure as a Gardevoir's heart, this stuff is."

James grinned. Team Rocket had left all of their stuff behind, and wherever they went from here on out- well, they had nothing left and would need money.

"We need to be careful though," Jessie said. "Just don't take too much."

Team Rocket took a coin… and then another, and then another. You might've thought that they should've been able to stop at some point, but being thieves, greed ran thick in their veins.

Sure, a single one of those coins was probably enough to buy food for three of them for a couple of months, and as long as they took only a dozen or so they could've easily left the ship and been on their way without triggering any alarms. The pirates probably wouldn't even have noticed that it was gone in the first place. You might've thought that perhaps Jessie would've had the sense to follow her own advice, but as it turns out, she was as bad as the other two when she saw how much they were hogging for themselves.

The end result being that they came up with an ingenious idea: They would simply take the entire treasure chest!

Of course, it weighed approximately three times as much as Meowth, so this was a bit of a problem, but they reassured themselves that they had it under control… never mind that it was very unwieldy and Jessie and James kept knocking it into each other's knees while Meowth tried lifting it from underneath.

They managed to get out of the door before James move the chest a bit too much and knocked it into the sentry, who was fast asleep.

Only now that last bit wasn't true.

"Huh?" he asked, confused, though likely to understand what was happening any minute now.

The smart thing to do in this situation would be to dump the chest and make an exit for it- maybe even swipe a few coins if one could think that one could get away with it.

Instead Team Rocket clung to the chest and disembarked from the ship, stopping to pick up any coins that they had dropped.

The pirates had raised the alarm back on their ship, and Jessie and James knew that they couldn't be too far behind.

"Let's shed some weight," James finally said when he could hear his pursuer's panting behind him.

At long last, Jessie seemed to agree. Jessie and James both threw the chest backwards and Meowth took a single coin between its teeth and they all made a beeline for the trees that were within sight.

The pirates, however, only paused for a minute to consider the gold before resuming chasing the Team Rocket trio.

It was as the trees were just within a few second's running distance away that James felt something whizz past his neck and embed itself in a tree.

It was a knife.

James tripped and took the other two with him. They looked up to see a bunch of pirates who did not look pleased at all.

And of course, at this time, Jessie's Wobbuffet decided to come out to give its two cents on the situation with a loud call proclaiming its name, as usual.

"I knew I should've brought another Pokemon," Jessie grumbled.

"What do we do with them?" one of them asked.

"We kill them," another one said. "Lady Elizabeth wants no witnesses."

* * *

It turned out that getting Ash ready for Pokemon Contests was sort of like trying to ride a bicycle- it was hard at first but once there was enough momentum it was even harder to stop.

Duke Hamnet knocked on the door to Ash's office to notice that Ash was sitting on the floor, with a bunch of notes on Pokemon Contests surrounding him in a semi-circle while he was looking at them intently and apparently waiting for enlightenment to strike. His Pikachu had already fallen asleep right besides him- it was already past the wee hours of the night.

"Ah, sir, there's a matter at hand," Duke Hamnet said.

Ash looked up. Duke Hamnet now regretted coming at this late hour- he'd heard that Ash was awake so he had decided to give his report now instead of later- but seeing the dark circles under Ash's eyes gave him second thoughts.

"What is it?" Ash asked.

"Ah- well, if this is not a good time, it is a matter that can wait until the next morning," Duke Hamnet said.

Ash shrugged. "If it's important, I'll hear it."

"The first is a matter regarding Thomdolt," Duke Hamnet said. "I had visited him earlier today in order to inquire about matters regarding his venom… and whether or not we could, ah, have use of it."

Ash frowned. "I'm not gonna start poisoning people. And no one knows the secret of his venom anyway, right?"

"You could force it out using your Gym Badge," Duke Hamnet said. "He hasn't sworn to keep it a secret- at least not on the Gym Badges."

"But it isn't of any use anyway," Ash said tiredly. "The others will have, uh, food tasters, right?"

"I was thinking that we could perhaps force it down their throats," Duke Hamnet said. "If you had enough Badges, perhaps, theoretically you could negate her Badge's power and force her mouth open to quite literally pour the toxin down her throat. I don't think it's ever been done… but theoretically speaking…"

"It wouldn't matter because I won't be doing it," Ash said. "No matter how frustrating all of this stuff with Vanessa is."

Duke Hamnet inclined his head. "I am well aware that you would not use it against Vanessa…. but I was referring instead to Selena. If we can't beat her in a fair battle, than it might be our only hope. And before you refuse- I merely wish to point out that Selena is a whole different beast from Vanessa. She's cruel beyond anything you can imagine- you may not have heard much about how she behaved before the Barrier was erected and even when the treaty between the Gym Leaders was being signed. Using unfair means would, well, it would hardly be unjustified in this circumstance."

"Okay, ignoring for a moment that I won't do it and all the moral problems, you just said yourself that it is simply a theory and we can't really test it," Ash said. "We don't know if it'll work… and especially since Selena can apparently manipulate the Elite Four Champion's power somehow to make this new smaller barrier that I can't get through. All I can work out from that is that she either has the new one hostage… but I thought he was in His Majesty's domain."

Duke Hament frowned. "If indeed the Elite Four Champion is alive, then he would naturally be with His Majesty instead of Selena. It is possible that His Majesty has decided to help Selena, but even if we ignore the fact that he's far too lazy to go to such extents, well, the two hate each other like a Seviper and Zangoose. It's hard to imagine them working together unless something extreme forced them too- and I don't think that His Majesty believes that you are a big enough threat anyway."

"Well, we'll find out soon enough," Ash said. "So a big no on the poison front." He rubbed his eyes wearily. "Is that it?"

"No, but first of all, Sir Ash, while this sort of perseverance is admirable, you need your rest just like anyone else," Duke Hamnet said. He was about to add that Ash needed it especially since he was only ten years old and still growing- but thought that it would be overstepping it a bit too much.

"I know, I know," Ash said. "Everyone's telling me to cool it, but the thing is that before, I didn't take it seriously because I kept putting it off for later- and now that it's right in front of me- I just can't stop thinking about the Pokemon Contest. And I just _have_ to win."

Duke Hamnet shuffled his feet. He knew that he should probably say something positive during this time, but cheering up depressed rulers wasn't something he was very good at- Freyja usually had the exact opposite problem of moping around all the time. "Well Sir, it is important, but I'm ah- certain we'll prevail. And worrying needlessly isn't going to improve the situation anyhow."

Ash nodded silently. From his reaction, Duke Hamnet guessed that he had done a rather poor job. "Well sir, onto other business- well, I wasn't finished. I trust you remember about the three regents that Vanessa has left in charge?"

"Yeah, a bit," Ash said. "I think one of them was called… Mary?"

"And the others are Catherine and Elizabeth," Duke Hamnet said. "As you might know- Vanessa had completely abandoned the administration of her domain and prefers to wander about without a care in the world."

"I can see where she's coming from," Ash said.

"It goes far behind simply delegating others to do her tasks," Duke Hamnet said. "She has quite literally in almost every single sense given up every single duty and isolated herself by wandering around her domain- doing whatever struck her fancy. And her domain is very large, Sir Ash, so she split it into three parts which her regents rule like their own private fiefdoms. They are also horribly corrupt and I'm not even sure if all the scandalous stories regarding them are true or not. Today I received three messengers from Vanessa's domain, and they each told the most peculiar story. Each of them claims to represent one of the three regents, and the funny thing is that they each seem to have no knowledge of the other. All three of them want to betray both Vanessa and the others in order to swear allegiance to you, in return for being able to keep their land and money that they have."

"Do you know if they're telling the truth or not?" Ash asked.

"I don't think we can," Duke Hamnet said. "They carried no official seals that we can check for certain like Sir Fredrick did since they don't come from Vanessa herself- and you could force the messengers to speak the truth using your Badge, but I have no doubt that they would've expected that and we need to remember that even if the messengers think they're telling the truth- it doesn't mean that the three of them actually mean it."

Ash rubbed his face. "How're they saying that they'll help me beat Vanessa?"

"They want to defect to your side when you challenge her," Duke Hamnet said. "Each of them claims to be more skilled that the others at Pokemon Contests and just shy of Vanessa's level."

"Why wouldn't they just call me if-" Ash said before realization hit him. "Of course, because Selena's monitoring the telephone lines."

Duke Hamnet nodded. "Interestingly, you might note that Vanessa's domain is the least digitized of all the domains in Galea. Her three regents have resisted using computers and insisted on using pen-and-paper methods since otherwise they would leave a telltale electronic trail."

"What should we do then?" Ash asked. "They haven't given us any guarantee."

"I was going to suggest just telling Vanessa about their treachery and hoping that she killed the three of them- weakening her own power," Duke Hamnet said. "Of course since we have no proof that'd never work."

"I don't see a reason to trust any of them then," Ash said. "Plus, if they're really as greedy as you say they are- then we shouldn't be making deals to let them keep whatever they've got in the first place." Ash let out a big yawn. "I really think that's all for today, I need to get some sleep."

Duke Hamnet nodded and left.

Ash slept peacefully, but he had a weird dream in which he saw a group of Bidoof waltzing away while Gary played a Pokeflute in the distance while Lance of the Elite Four was building a snowman, but when he woke up he didn't remember the dream at all.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. Do please review if you liked!**


	50. VS Vanessa V

Throughout James' life, he had considered picking an alternate line of work several times. Usually this happened when he and Jessie were foraging for berries or going to sleep hungry after the Boss had refused to rebuild their funds yet again. As a matter of fact, in certain times, James found himself acting out the role of a hero and not that of a villain.

James had heard that people saw their lives flash before their eyes before they died and he never put too much stock into it, but not he swore he saw all of this flash before his eyes as the pirate in front of him raised his sword and tilted it at his neck.

James had been in trouble before- more times that he could count- but he usually assumed that the worst of it would be over. James found himself gripped by fear but it all dissipated as the reality of the situation managed to penetrate his thick skull. He was going to die if he didn't do something soon.

And so, James grabbed a bunch of sand and chucked it at the pirate's eyes. The pirate's accuracy fe- no wait that only happens in the games.

James took the split moment that followed to grab Jessie and Meowth and the three of them cowered behind Wobbuffet, using it as a shield. Wobbuffet, at the very least, was good at defending.

The only obvious thing was that it would be childishly easy for the pirates to go and flank them- or for that matter to go around them and strike at them from the rear. Jessie's Wobbuffet couldn't save them from all sides.

James desperately thought of something that would prevent this from happening- and couldn't- so he relied on the old time-tested method of spouting nonsense.

"Back off!" James said. "I'll have you know that I know kung-fu!"

The pirates glanced at each other. "Are you high or something?" one of them asked.

It was as James realized that he had no further plan that Jessie decided to step in and grabbed Wobbuffet, making it a mobile shield as the three of them retreated deep into the woods. The pirates followed them of course, but ended up getting separated from each other as the woods grew thicker.

James figured that they would eventually stop since they'd have to go back to their treasure- they weren't going to leave it on the beach for anyone to steal after all. Or so he thought.

Instead, the pirates didn't let up, and regrouped once they reached a small clearing, only to lose the Team Rocket Trio once again as they slipped into the woods.

James was sweating heavily- they were just barely managing to get away- and for some reason these pirates weren't letting up.

"I hear something," Meowth said, breaking the eerie silence that surrounded them.

James could hear it later on to, it was the sound of footsteps and people talking. It wasn't coming from the pirates- but from somewhere behind them.

Team Rocket carried their Wobbuffet into what looked like a huge carnival. There were colored tents scattered everywhere along the ground and James saw someone wearing a helmet that looked like a Sharpedo, who was fast asleep.

The pirates, strangely enough, marched on forward unperturbed by this.

"Pirates! Pirates!" Jessie shouted out, hoping that whoever these people were, they'd lend a helping hand.

The sound spread quickly through the camp, and within a few minutes an incomplete circle of people wearing similar uniforms surrounded them, with the pirates completing the ring.

"What is this?" someone asked.

A woman with auburn hair who looked like she had just been woken up walked near them, with the soldiers parting before her like water around a rock. "What is this?"

One of the pirates said, "Lady Elizabeth! We were ferrying your gold back towards you when we found these stowaways on our ship- they were trying to take our gol-"

The pirate got no further as one of the soldiers stepped forward to punch him across the face.

Lady Elizabeth looked livid. "Why are you shouting, you idiot! If she-" She paused as she turned around to face a shorter woman with curly brown hair. "Ah- Lady Vanessa, I see that you've woken up."

"There was a huge racket," Vanessa said. She then took a look at Team Rocket. "What are they wearing? And what is this deal with pirates?"

"N-nothing, Your Majesty," Elizabeth said. "It's a simple matter that I can handle myself- no need for you to feel bothered by this."

"I think I _want_ to be bothered about this," Vanessa said, glaring at Elizabeth. "Do these pirates work for you, Elizabeth."

"Why, well, yes," Elizabeth said. "But they are hired privateers, and I can explain why we have them."

"I think I can ask them myself," Vanessa said and marched up to the pirate who was still sprawled out across the ground. She took something out of her nightgown- something that sparkled brightly even though there was nothing that possible so bright as to cause a glimmer like that. "Do tell me the truth now. Why are you here?"

The pirate began blabbing so fast that some of his words seemed to fuse together. "Lady Elizabeth ordered us to bring back the Altruscan Gold back from where she ordered it hidden in Wade's domain and to bring it to her camp then we-"

"Silence!" Vanessa snapped. She turned to Elizabeth, who was as white as a sheet. "You told me that the Altruscan Gold had been stolen by vandals, and that you needed extra gold to replace it and to double the guards around your camp." She stepped forward. "All of it was lies, wasn't it?"

"I- I admit, Lady Vanessa, and I apologize for doing so," Elizabeth said. "I merely wished to line my pockets a little and I thought that by-"

Elizabeth didn't get any further as Vanessa motioned towards one of the guards, who stepped forward, dragged Elizabeth and then in a single stroke beheaded her.

Vanessa glared at the decapitated body. "And here I was so trusting of you, Beth. There was so much that I could have done to ensure your compliance, but no, of course, I wanted to be the nice girl for a change." She kept pacing around and ranting, mostly to herself when she noticed Team Rocket again.

Jessie got a clear look at Vanessa's eyes, and noticed that they had dark bags under them and that they were bloodshot. "Just who are you people then?" she asked.

Team Rocket, understandably, was initially very confused as to what was happening around them, and then very scared as they watched a murder- or execution as Jessie guessed considering that this Vanessa person was apparently a queen.

"We's Team Rocket," Meowth managed to get out.

Vanessa's eyes widened. She put whatever that shiny thing was that she had in her hand away and said, "Was it just me, or did that Pokemon just talk?" She then frowned. "Or are the two of you ventriloquists? Guards, make sure that their mouths stay shut."

Two guards came and wrapped pieces of cloth around Jessie and James' mouths who didn't protest because they had seen what had happened to Elizabeth.

Vanessa then picked Meowth up. "Talk again, little creature."

"Well, I's Meowth here," Meowth said.

"Interesting," Vanessa said. "So you _are_ talking. And it doesn't sound like there's a microphone or anything."

Meowth then had his privacy violated at Vanessa put her hand in his mouth before removing it and saying, "No, no microphone. What an interesting little creature. Perhaps I could use it in my Pokemon Contest."

"Pokemon Contest? Yeah, I've been in a few," Meowth said and pointed to Jessie. "She's mainly the one who enters me in though."

"You've been in contests?" Vaness asked. "But I know all the popular contest spots here and I would've certainly heard of a talking Pokemon."

"Well, I mean it wasn't here, wherever this is," Meowth said. "It was usually back in Hoenn or Sinnoh."

"Hoenn? Sinnoh?" Vanessa asked. "I've never heard of… but you can't possibly mean the regions beyond Galea!"

"Galea?" Meowth asked. "What's that supposed to be again?"

Vanessa took one look at Jessie and James and then told her guards, "Bring me some coffee. This is going to be a long night."

* * *

By the time the sun was already high up, Vanessa was reviewing the story that the Team Rocket Trio had told her. It was extremely long and convoluted- which was why she was sure that they weren't lying- not that she didn't check using her Badge for that matter, so that meant that they were either lying or just insane.

"And how did you get into Galea again?" she asked.

They were all seated within her private pavilion, with Jessie and James now gorging on the food that had been brought for them. Meowth had already had his fill and was the one doing most of the talking. Vanessa was actually a bit amused- after all the proper etiquette and delicateness that was present in her court, it was odd to see people eating like Jessie and James did- especially since even Jessie didn't seem to be eating with any more restraint than James was.

"There was a huge explosion and we were carried over," Meowth said, repeating their story for the twelfth time.

"Hmm," Vanessa said. "You there! Are you any good at Pokemon Contests?"

"Well, yes," Jessie said in-between bites, not bothering to mention that she had been repeatedly defeated by a ten-year-old child several times. "Though I don't have any Pokemon right now."

"That's all right, they can be replaced," Vanessa said with a wave of her hand. "Now, I think I believe that I've told you quite enough about Galea, and coming to the point, with Elizabeth dead, I need someone else to participate in a Pokemon Contest against this Ash." She rubbed her eyes. "Perhaps I could have been a more lenient person towards her- but I just get so cranky when I don't get enough sleep. Anyway, what's happened has happened. Will you agree to help me and take Elizabeth's place? I see that the two of you are no friends of Ash Ketchum."

Jessie paused for a second. The thing was that she didn't exactly want to say yes or no. This Vanessa person reminded her of that one character from Alice in Wonderland- the Red Queen. And given that her last favorite had just been killed she wasn't so sure what would happen to her in case Vanessa got angry. Not to mention she was describing Ash in a way that Jessie knew that the twerp was not- not that she had

Then again, on the other hand, they were sure to die if Jessie refused. "Sure, I'll do it."

Vanessa smiled. "Well, I'll be catching forty winks until evening, but do feel free to start practicing until then. I guess you can have Elizabeth's Pokemon."


	51. VS Vanessa VI

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys. It has occurred to me that we passed by our fiftieth chapter last time and it wasn't something extraordinary or like that, so I guess that's it. Anyway, that was fifty chapters done, and based on how the story is going although the next arcs will be a bit longer, I don't think this will touch another fifty. I don't plan on stretching this out unnecessarily, we'll probably be done in a year or two if I keep up at this pace. Thanks for reading, and I guess here's to twenty-five chapters more?**

"So, I've gone over the list of possible moves to use in our Cool segment for the Pokemon Contest," Mr. Jennings said. "And then I updated it again- I trust that everyone has the updated list?"

Everyone gathered in the office nodded- it was flooded with various papers and Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet were not actually present but talking to them using telephones.

The Replay Badge was turning out to be a mixed blessing as they prepared for the imminent Pokemon Contest. While on the one hand they could use it to teach several moves to their Pokemon as long as they weren't those that they couldn't learn normally- else they'd be stuck with Pokemon that knew only one move- this meant that they had so many options that they were quite literally swamped at all the choices they had and kept updating their strategies.

"Have we assembled the props?" Brock asked. A few props, just like in Hoenn Pokemon Contests, were allowed.

"Yes," Misty said. "But I think we need something better for the Tough segment than just crushing a boulder- it's good, but not very spectacular."

Ash looked at everything that surrounded him with weary eyes. For the last few weeks, he had eaten and drank nothing but Pokemon Contests for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even his midnight snacks.

"I think we should move out now," Ash said above the noise. "I think we should go and face her."

Everyone turned to look at him.

"Ash, I think we're going to need some more time," Brock said.

"We'll _always_ need more time, Brock," Ash said. "We keep thinking of new things to add to our act, but that's going to go on forever. If this continues, we'll never think that we'll be ready." Ash then gestured around the room- almost accidentally smacking Pikachu in the head. "And we've done nothing but think about this for so long that I think I'm going to go crazy. It's gotten so bad that no one's even really running the government here anymore and even Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet are devoting all their time to this. Look, I get it, this is important, and I don't want to rush into it, but I think that we've reached the point where we're too prepared for this."

"Forgive me for saying this, Sir Ash," Mr. Jennings said in a very serious tone usually reserved for when one talks about religion or politics, "but there is nothing known as being _too prepared_ for something."

Ash sighed. "My point is that we have too many options here and we're not able to do anything because of them. No matter what plan we make we keep second-guessing ourselves and thinking of something else, just because we think that we have all the time in the world." Ash looked each member sitting there in the eye.

"I think Ash might be right," Brock said. "We're sitting here because we're just too afraid that since we have only one shot of taking down Vanessa we should take as much time as possible since there's so much at stake here. But if we just sit here for too long… well, that's counterproductive."

At that point, Ash and Brock were all for throwing the dice right now, but Misty and Mr. Jennings were for waiting for a few more weeks to make a fully detailed plan. The rest of them seemed to be on the fence, which was why Ash spent the rest of two hours getting them on his side.

In the end, everyone including Misty was on board with Ash except for Mr. Jennings- but Mr. Jennings was probably not going to start until they had at the very least a thousand page tome detailing their various plans and contingencies that could arise, so Ash decided that it didn't matter that much.

"So I think we should move out in around three days," Ash said. "Since Vanessa probably thinks that she'll win, we don't need to bother with trying to invade- meaning no- what do you call it?- oh yeah, collateral damage this time."

"We can call her and agree on a ground for a match," Duke Hamnet said.

"What if she doesn't want to fight us right now?" Misty said. "We're ready, but she might want to drag things out."

"I doubt that," Duke Hamnet said. "After all, Pokemon Contests are what put Vanessa on her throne and what will take her off too, and she must know that at the very least. She probably has had quite some practice- on the other hand all of us are veterans only in Pokemon battles, so the longer she waits the longer we have time to prepare and it would be more detrimental to her chances of winning to stall. If she is certain of her victory she would also want this thing over with as soon as was possible so that she could continue whatever it is she normally does."

"Okay, so where should we agree to meet then?" Ash asked. "Wade'll also need to come, so we need to meet up with him first."

"We can meet him near Ponyta Bay," Mr. Jennings said. "And it would be good if he practiced his routine with us first before we leave."

"Agree," Ash said.

Three days passed with furious activity- so much so that at times Ash wondered if he had made the right choice in expediting their departure. He went ahead though, and Wade met up them near Ponyta Bay as was planned.

After they exchanged the usual pleasantries, Ash asked, "Have you ever been in a Pokemon Contest before?"

"I fear not," Wade said. "I never thought it would be a skill I would need- but based on what I've been reading up in my spare time I think I would be good at the Tough and Cool categories, and I recently endeavored to find a Feebas and now I have a Milotic, so perhaps I can contribute to the Beauty segment as well."

"Well that's great," Ash said.

"But I think you and I both know that when it comes to the appeals, we cannot outclass Vanessa," Wade said. "In the end though, our greatest strength lies in how powerful our Pokemon are, and I am confident that at the very least, in that aspect, we can be sure that we'll win."

"Yeah, the problem is the appeal," Ash said. "And also that we can only use a single Pokemon each and can't change it for a round."

"Don't worry though," Wade said. "I'm certain that we shall prevail."

"Yeah, and I'm sure Vanessa thinks the same thing," Ash said to himself quietly as Wade walked away to talk to other people and attempted to stage a conversation with Brock and Misty that was totally not awkward.

It was very awkward.

"So," Wade said as he stepped up to them. "Feeling ready?"

"Yeah," Brock said.

"Yes, and you?" Misty asked.

"Almost," Wade said.

That pretty much exhausted all topics they had to discuss so they just looked around until Misty and Brock found an excuse to leave.

* * *

Colonel Nage yawned as the waves calmly rocked the ship back and forth. It was like being in a giant cradle and it was just so hard not to zonk off, haven been given the most boring assignment in the world by Lord Wade, after all.

His crew mates were nothing exciting, and they were probably either playing poker or sleeping right now, even though the sun was bright out. Every once in a while, one of them would come on deck, take some instruments, read and record them, and go on back.

Their ship was a beauty with three masts and made completely out of timber- no cement at all. It was an extremely advanced ship… if you considered the design had been made five hundred years ago. Wade liked the design, had the ship made, but of course no use was ever found for it and so it was handed off to people like Colonel Nage to use in order to monitor the Barrier a bit more closely.

And by closely, Colonel Nage wasn't kidding. They were only around fifty meters away from the Barrier. It was actually illegal in Galea to wander anywhere near the Barrier closer than one hundred meters from it but it was a law that was poorly enforced- since pretty no one in all of Galea was stupid enough to go and try dallying by the Barrier.

The majority of people were extremely superstitious about the Barrier, and odd stories circulated around on how people seemed to vanish when they got near the Barrier- never to be seen again. Colonel Nage wrote those off as rumors that were probably started by the Gym Leaders so that people wouldn't go crowding around the Barrier like it was the Ruins of Grisigoth.

This was probably good for Colonel Nage as it meant that he didn't have to deal with any pesky civilians trying to sneak about while he was working.

It was as he absentmindedly was looking out into the waves that he noticed it. He blinked- surely he was mistaken?

The Barrier was smooth and flawless, but just in front of him Colonel Nage saw, for the first time in days that there was the tiniest of what looked like a fracture in the Barrier.

"Crew! Get over here now!" he shouted out.

He heard the footsteps of his juniors as the crack suddenly became larger and the Barrier opened up to embrace his ship in a huge cornucopia of light.

After it disappeared there was nothing left but the plain sea and the waves swirling about as normal as they had done so for an eternity unbroken.

Colonel Nage, his ship, and his crew were nowhere to be found. Not that anyone noticed they were missing until three days after the incident.

* * *

Ash looked at the border between Linnea's and Vanessa's domain. It was sharply demarcated as the land on his side was grass no higher than twelve inches, and on the other side was dark red clay soil in contrast to the black loamy soil of what was now his territory and it had clumps of small ferns scattered throughout what was mostly a barren plain.

Ash tapped his foot in impatience. The border was impressive, but he had been waiting here for two hours as they had sent a messenger to Vanessa to tell her that they were ready and now they were waiting for an escort to take them to wherever the Pokemon Contest was going to be held. Ash would've just gone on ahead, but the others said that even if they were enemies, in this case since they were agreeing to challenge them openly it would be best to follow etiquette.

The others were involved in various activities- some of them were just looking over their own preparations for the Pokemon Contests while Gulliver and Brock were playing some kind of children's card game. Only Wade seemed to be doing nothing- or at least he seemed to be gazing out at the horizon absentmindedly, so Ash decided to strike up a conversation.

"So," Ash said- Wade suddenly turned to him, startled- "I've been wondering about something lately. Ya know how the Badges prevent you from aging, right? But when I beat you, you didn't suddenly age fifty years and neither did the others."

"It does not work like that," Wade said. "While we have a Badge, we're saved from ageing. When we lose it, our bodies are simply as old as the Badges kept them- in other words when we first received our Gym Badges."

"So, Linnea, Freyja, Marley, and Thomdolt are going to age normally then?" Ash asked.

"I am not so sure," Wade said. "The Badges store a bit of energy in their wielders… and those who become Elite Four members imbibe a bit of their power permanently within their bodies and remain immortal even though they gave them up. It is possible that they will age once that energy wears off so I would hazard a guess that they will begin to age normally. I am not so sure regarding these things as a Gym Leader usually is sent to the chopping block once he is defeated. The only real exception before you came would've been Sir Fredrick, I suppose, but I don't know what has happened to him."

"I saw him, he's still alive," Ash said.

"Truly?" Wade asked.

"Yeah," Ash said and told him about the time Fredrick had come to deliver a message.

"I can't know for sure how much he's aged unless I saw his face," Wade said and trailed off.

Wade didn't give any further replies, so Ash asked another question, "Why are the territories in Galea so different? I mean, you can really tell when you cross a border."

"They are not man-made," Wade said. "They say at the beginning, Lord Arceus created Galea on eight different days, creating one of the domains each day. So they are naturally quite distinct from each other."

"I never heard that legend before," Ash said. "And I mean I've seen Arceus too and I didn't know that."

Wade unexpectedly started laughing. It wasn't a weird laugh- but Ash had never seen him laugh before and everyone in their vicinity suddenly stopped whatever it was that they were doing and looked at them, wondering what was wrong.

"I'm sorry, but that was truly funny," Wade said once he had calmed down. "Really? You saw Lord Arceus himself? The very creator of the universe?"

It was then that Ash realized that Wade didn't believe him, and as he opened his mouth to try and convince Wade otherwise, he realized that there was nothing he could really say that would prove to Wade that he wasn't lying. And even if Wade said that he believed Ash after much talking, it would probably be because Ash was in charge.

"Hey look, I think they finally managed to arrive!" Brock said, pointing off into the distance, where a group of people were approaching them… rather slowly.

Ash put the conversation out of his mind for the time being and looked at his Pikachu, who nodded.

Ash smiled. As long as they were together, he didn't know what it was in this universe that they couldn't take on together.

 **A/N: That ends this chapter. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked.**


	52. VS Vanessa VII

Ash had been through a lot in his rather short lifespan. He had quite literally fought gods, or at least their equivalents, seen several continents, and met more people than most others would have in their entire lifetimes.

Ash would have preferred to be back in any moment of his life instead of where he was right now. Ash had never chewed his fingernails before in his life, but he had reduced them to stubble within two hours after the envoys from Vanessa arrived.

They introduced themselves as some sort of priests, and were clad in white robes and wearing dark red cloaks over their shoulders. The introductions between the two sides took an entire half hour. The envoys were extremely loquacious and flamboyant- the only one who seemed to be comfortable talking to them on Ash's side was Wade. He was also the only one who didn't seem impatient as they walked- at a Shuckle's pace- towards their destination. As a matter of fact, it looked like he had been expecting it.

Ash had heard somewhere that when you died, in the afterlife, they made you watch your entire life as a movie. He just sincerely hoped that if they did, he'd get the option to fast forward over this bit.

It was clear to Ash that at this rate, the Pokemon Contest would have to be held tomorrow. There was no way that they were going to reach the stage, based on what the envoys had told them regarding how far away it was, before sunset.

After what seemed like forever, a small hamlet came into view in the distance. The envoys apparently felt the need to describe the hamlet and how it was one of the starting points for their religion- a topic that they went into for the next fifteen minutes.

Wade then turned to Ash and said, "If you're more interested in Arceus, Sir Ash, there is a monument and some ruins we could visit. It doesn't seem like it will delay our journey too much."

The envoys seemed to be pretty insistent on them visiting the place after that, so Ash just rolled his eyes and said that it was fine. Anyway they had to stop for supper at some point, and this seemed like a fine place.

The envoys led them into the village, and so Ash decided to talk to Wade. "How are you dealing with all of this? It's insane- we should just hop onto our Pokemon and get there as fast as possible."

Wade nodded. "I would advise against that, no matter how much I feel like doing the same. The customs of the people living in this territory are strange- there are various religious cults that only exist in this territory and sorts of, well, I suppose one should not say queer, but well- I find it hard to describe some of their rituals and traditions otherwise. Part of that which I've found is their need for mind-numbing ritualistic and elaborately delicate methods of going about their business- mostly for the upper class. It would not do to insult their practices."

Ash sighed. "So, this is like the place in Galea where all the weird stuff happens? I thought that was Freyja's domain."

Wade shook his head. "No, it was only Freyja who was an oddity- the rest of her people were quite normal."

Ash found himself distracted, however, as they walked into the village and he got a look at what 'normal' Galeans here looked like and how they lived. The houses were all made up of mud and hay and had roofs made up of some sort of shiny metal that Wade said was abundant but also apparently carcinogenic. There was quite noticeably a dearth of Pokemon involved in farms, Ash only saw half a dozen Miltank in the village. The people glanced out to look at Ash and his party, but they always kept their distance and parted away if they got too close. Ash saw a small boy- around four- running around naked who then shrunk towards a wall when he saw all of them. Ash could tell that several of his crew members didn't like the place and probably felt a mixture of pity for the people there and an urgent sense to leave as fast as possible. These people seemed to belong to a different timeline as compared to what Ash had seen back in Kanto, or even the better parts of Galea for that matter. He guessed that most of them had probably never even seen a computer- and it looked like something as simple to Ash as bicycles were a luxury here. The contrast with how people like him and Mr. Jennings were living was extremely apparent and sent his mind whirring. He had never seen this sort of inequality in any of the regions he had visited- sure, there were rich and poor there too, but here the change was just so… drastic. It was something that Ash had honestly never really given a thought to before this, but he remembered what Celera had said to him when she suggested laying siege to Aroughs… that Ash had always just seen the best parts of Galea.

In the center of the village there was a statue of a Pokemon that was so big Ash could only guess that it was lifelike. Around it was a shrine that looked so much richer and proper than any of the houses in the village.

"Here is a statue of our Lord Arceus, He who created the universe using his thousand and eight arms," one of the priests said.

Ash looked at the statue… and the first thing he realized that this was _definitely_ not a statue of Arceus- at least not the Arceus he had seen. The lower part was actually surprisingly accurate, and the size matched the Arceus he had seen- which made him wonder for a second if the sculptor had actually seen Arceus. But the portion above Arceus's waist was different… it was far more humanoid, and the statue actually had several arms attached to it which all seemed to merge into each other. The head was like the Arceus that Ash had seen, but it had what looked like a crown on it, and even stranger, the Arceus statue had a huge tail with a barbed end.

Ash blinked as the envoys began some sort of long sermon which Ash ignored in order to whisper to Wade, "Is this statue really based off of Arceus?"

"It looks like some drawings that people made based off his likeness," Wade said. "The sculptor probably tried depicting the many arms by having them fused together… but the story I remember is that Arceus had only one thousand arms. Odd."

Ash considered telling Wade that Brock had also seen Arceus who looked nothing like this, but he guessed that even then the whole story was too outlandish to be believable.

"I do not know if this is real for that matter," Wade said. "There are more religious societies and faiths in this region to count- they all stem, I believe from a single one practiced around four thousand years ago."

Ash scratched his head and decided not to comment. He didn't get much of what the envoys were saying, so after they were done they decided to take quick (read: two hours long) break in the village to eat. Ash wolfed down his meal but saw how the priests daintily ate every bite- though the villagers around them seemed to eat just like Ash did.

The sun had set by that time, so they decided to rest in the village for the night before heading off the next morning.

Ash was woken up as the sun had barely come up to see that the people of the village were already moving up and about. He shook them up, and in Brock's case when he mistook Ash for Nurse Joy, had Pikachu shock him awake.

Ash made a mental note to find out, one he'd won the person who was in charge of this specific district, because whoever they were they were not doing a good job. Ash had seen quite a few members of the place go to the bathroom in the open and had taken time out to purify their drinking water supply before they headed out.

* * *

The collection of tents came into view in the distance, and at that point Ash had had enough and overtook the envoys and turned around later to see that his teammates were also following him, with the envoys looking shocked.

Ash ignored that and then increased his speed. There were a large number of colorful tents scattered throughout the grassy plain and the sky was a cloudless blue. It was a nice day for a Pokemon Contest.

What loomed over all the tents was a huge structure that was made of wood that could only have been the stadium meant for the contest.

Some guards saw Ash approaching and asked him to wait while they told Vanessa. Ash had to say that he thought that their armor was cool- if only Team Aqua had decided to dress up like that!

Vanessa came- Ash was surprised to see that she wasn't much taller than he was, and then there were some flowery introductions before Ash formally put his challenge to her.

"I think we should start soon then," Vanessa said. "I just need to wait for my other Trainers to arrive."

Two women walked towards Vanessa with excessive poise and grace while being trailed by a swarm of servants. Ash guessed they were the regents that he had heard about.

What snapped him out of his stupor from hours of inactivity was seeing a face that he remembered, though calling it a 'friendly face' was a bit of an exaggeration. And there were others with her.

"Jessie? James? Team Rocket?" Ash asked, bewildered.

"Yes, I do believe you know them," Vanessa said with glee, as if she was expecting some sort of reaction from Ash. "Jessie here has taken Elizabeth's place."

Ash noticed that Jessie and James were dressed up in what he guessed was traditional clothing wherever Elizabeth was from and that both of them, and Meowth, looked extremely uncomfortable as if they'd take an offer for being anywhere else but here in a heartbeat.

Ash wanted to talk to them as he had lots of questions, but the Pokemon Contest started.

Vanessa had another advantage on top of having six contestants- she got to choose the order in which the Pokemon Contests would be held.

Ash didn't want the Smart Contest to be first since he and his crew were severely under-prepared for that segment and he didn't want to start off with a demoralizing loss.

Thankfully, Vanessa chose to host the Beauty Contest first, probably thinking that it would give her the advantage.

The inside of the stadium, even though it was only a temporary construction, was every bit as magnificent as any of those of the Grand Cups that were hold in any of the regions he had been- only that there were no cameras and it seated far less people.

Aside from those contesting and the five people each party had brought to be judges for the appeals, it seemed that Vanessa had decided to go and invite various nobles from her domain as spectators.

The ten judges took their places, and both parties declared who would be participating.

From Ash's side Ash, Duke Hamnet, Wade, and Misty decided tot take part.

Vanessa, her three reagents, and two other Trainers whom Ash had never seen before opposed them.

Ash decided to go up first. For this part, he had decided to bet on Arcanine. Ash released his Arcanine- no expense had been left in grooming him for the Contest and so his fur sparkled and shimmered in the sunlight.

Ash's act was to use flames to surround Arcanine in an elegant whirl and have him use Flame Wheel to launch itself in the air. The main problem with doing this sort of act was that the flames were usually so bright that they usually ended up momentarily blinding people- but Ash had had enough practice to pull it off.

The scores from the judges came: Ash got eighty points out of a hundred. The problem was that no one knew if this was really a good score or not- they'd only know once the scores from other people came in.

Vanessa decided that she would follow up- and she sent out her Glaceon and did a small bow as her Glaceon began using Icy Wind, sending slender tendrils of ice around itself which it wove into a huge ice rose, which split the sunlight wherever it struck it, giving it a prismatic glow.

Ash removed his jaw from the ground- that was the best thing that he had ever seen. Her score came in- she had gotten a ninety-nine. Vanessa still seemed miffed though that she had lost one point and begrudgingly, Ash could honestly say that she deserved the full hundred.

Mary then followed up with a Petal Dance from a Lilligant that left a wonderful aroma in the air along with the shower of flowers, giving her a ninety. Catherine used a Cacnea of all Pokemon, and its Solar Beam was only good enough to get her a seventy-five.

Wade then went up, and he did much better than Ash. Once he set out his Milotic and combined Safeguard with Water Pulse, his Pokemon glowed just like one of the Badges did. Wade got a ninety-two, which was a big relief.

Misty used her Starmie to create a sort of water fountain to spray droplets around to create a rainbow from the sunlight- but as it had already been done three times already it kind of lost its pomp and she only got a seventy.

Once Jessie went up, Ash tried catching her eye to ask her what was going on, and several times throughout the Contest she tried contacting James and Meowth but couldn't find an opening to talk to them when no one was looking. From what had happened Ash had assumed that they had somehow found their way into Galea… well, they had a habit of turning up wherever Ash was. But the question was why they were working with Vanessa. Did they actually make some sort of deal willingly with her? But, they didn't look like they were enjoying it. Were they being forced into this?

Jessie used a Beautifly- where had she gotten that from?- which used String Shot to create a palace of silk in minutes. It was pretty good, Ash had to admit, and she got eighty-seven from it, but she didn't look too happy about that.

Duke Hamnet sent out his Altaria- whose wings had been cleaned until they were as white as pure milk and for this segment Altaria used its voice along with Dragon Dance to put on a performance filled with vitality. Duke Hamnet got a seventy-eight.

The other two Trainers from Vanessa's team weren't very good at got seventy each.

This meant that the top four Trainers were Vanessa, Wade, Catherine, and Mary.

Out of all of them, three were from Vanessa's team. There was a break of ten minutes in-between the Appeal and Battle rounds, which Wade used to talk to Ash.

"Wow, it's great that at least one of us managed to get in," Ash said. "Otherwise we'd have lost already."

"There is a problem though," Wade whispered to Ash. "I have not had proper time to train this Milotic for battle. It was time consuming simply finding a Feebas, and even more so putting on this act. I still am confident of my ability to win, but I would request that you teach it a few moves I have in mind."

"Sure," Ash said. "That's not cheating, is it?"

"No, no, this is part of the break," Wade said. "And it is within the rules for us to use a small help like that. But we cannot heal our Pokemon in the interval between battles once they start."

Normally the Battle Round would've worked classic tournament-style, but since three of the people were from the same team, Wade would have to beat every one of them, with his score resetting after each match.

Jessie stepped up first. Ash guessed that Vanessa wanted to tire out Wade a bit- but he knew that it was here that Vanessa had made a crucial mistake. She was probably the strongest fighter, and this would only give Wade enough time to get used to fighting with Milotic.

Jessie sent out her Beautifly, and now that Ash took a closer look, he could see that there was something wrong with the Beautifly. It was drooping close to the ground… did that mean it was sad? Pikachu also seemed to have noticed and sent a look of pity at it.

"Water Pulse!" Wade said and stream of water struck Jessie's Beautifly. Jessie tried counterattacking but it turned out that Wade was too strong and took out the Beautifly.

Wade wasn't allowed to heal before going against the next challenger, but he did get his hundred points back at the very least.

Mary wasn't a much better fighter than Jessie- she may have hoped that a Grass type would have the advantage against Milotic but that was taken out with an Ice Beam.

Vanessa was a bit better, but Milotic had learned Iron Tail recently. It wasn't a move that fell into the Beauty type, but the Glaceon couldn't take more than a few hits so it didn't matter much anyway.

And with that, Ash's team won the Beauty segment and so they had a victory in hand for this round. Vanessa looked furious- Ash guessed that this was probably the segment where she was sure that she was going to win.

The next round, which was going to be Cute, would be held the next day so the respective sides went their own ways. There was no hint of fraternizing between the two camps- not even one just for namesake.

Ash would've liked to check on Team Rocket, but it turned out that he'd have no time for something like that as he got busy in practicing for the next round.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading and all the reviews from last time. It appears that I did forget that Ash's Haunter had been evolved at some point and then wrote it down as a Haunter- that was a big mistake and I'll work on fixing it. Thanks chaosspeer, Julie Togepi (it isn't very much believable even if Brock decides to back Ash up), Something Dictionary Related, and Guest.**

 **Do review if you liked.**


	53. VS Vanessa VIII

**A/N: Thanks for the review, Julie Togepi. And yes, I can't imagine how anyone who hadn't seen them would react to hearing about Ash's adventures... especially the crazier bits.**

The next morning came all too soon and with far too little sleep for Ash Ketchum. The crowd seemed to have grown as people flocked to watch the match so that now the bleachers were filled.

Vanessa was trying to be pleasant- but she wasn't really trying hard enough for it to be believable. It didn't help that Catherine suddenly had a black eye- it was rumored that Vanessa had gotten pretty mad that she had gotten only seventy-five points yesterday but Ash had no way to see if it was true that Vanessa had caused that- then again, seeing as Catherine's high position practically guaranteed that no one besides Vanessa could have done that, it was highly likely.

This time, Vanessa went first and sent out an Eevee. She then had it use Lick of all moves- but somehow, seeing the Eevee with its huge eyes clean and preen itself in front of the entire audience was extremely adorable somehow. Lick wasn't even classified as a Cute move, but Vanessa managed to pull it off and got a ninety.

Well, that gave Ash some hope- clearly Vanessa wasn't an amazing coordinator in _all_ the categories, at the very least.

The second Trainer to step up was a woman whom Ash had never seen before, but she kind of looked like Cynthia if Cynthia didn't look dress like a Goth. She sent out a Piplup of all things, and it began using Bubble. It created a large swath of Bubbles, and it began riding and hopping on them from place to place! It was one of the most hilarious things that Ash had seen- but was apparently also very adorable as she got a ninety-five.

Gulliver went up next and sent out his Psyduck. Gulliver's plan was to have his Psyduck wander around- running into things along the way, fall down, and get back right up. It was actually a pretty good act and fetched him and eighty-five.

Misty tried to put on an act with her Goldeen but it really just ended up tanking and she only got a fifty. Misty was pretty miffed, but Ash tried calming her down.

"It's okay, we'll get past this," Ash said.

Catherine was then up, and she seemed to have brought her A-game for this round as she sent out a Jigglypuff which seemed to have even larger eyes than a normal one and rolled around laughing and singing. She got an eighty-seven and Ash kind of felt sorry for her every time he looked at her black eye.

Jessie used her Beautifly again and managed to use Silver Wind to cloak it in what looked like a huge gown. It seemed to fall more into Beauty than Cute though, but she till got an eighty for her efforts.

Mary used a Ralts and had it feed itself with a small spoon using Confusion and wander across the stage with Teleport- she managed to get a ninety!

In the end no one in Ash's team managed to make it to the next round… meaning that Vanessa won the Cute segment by default.

Vanessa suddenly looked far more chipper suddenly, and Ash was seriously beginning to wonder if she had bipolar disorder or something- did the Badges also prevent people from getting mental illnesses?

Next up was the Smart segment, and this was the part where no one on either side seemed to have any clue as to how to proceed. It was always a mystery to Ash and his friends as to just what consisted of a smart performance… what was a Pokemon supposed to do, go get an IQ test? It seemed Vanessa was equally ignorant though, and basically both of the sides stumbled through the segment trying to put on an act. It was the only segment in which two people from Ash's team managed to get to the final round- Brock and Duke Hamnet, and as expected, they managed to win.

They only needed one more point to win, but Vanessa seemed so mad at having lost another round that she ordered the next round to be tomorrow and said it would be Cool. Ash privately thought it was for the best so she didn't end up hitting someone else.

She seemed to have better control as the next day, none of the members of her team had any new injuries and it seemed that she had probably fixed Catherine's eye using the Ribbon Badge.

The Cool segment was one of the ones where Ash was pretty confident in himself.

For this round, he sent out his Pikachu and had a bathtub full of water brought in. The bathtub was itself made of tungsten, so that when Pikachu passed electricity through it, it was heated and the water began evaporating.

It was clear from the confused looks that most people present there had no idea what was going on, but once enough steam was generated, Pikachu stopped and began using its electricity to charge the air around itself. As the water vapor rose and cooled to condense, the electricity from Pikachu caused a small thundercloud to gather beneath it, and Pikachu hopped on it, firing Thunderbolts all around itself like it was some sort of lightning god.

This was something that no one had seen before, and Ash's score of ninety-five ensured that Ash would find a spot in the next round, and with Pikachu's strength, victory was assured.

There was no need for the Tough segment anymore as Ash had already won three of the rounds, and Ash found the Ribbon Badge hovering towards him.

Ash closed his eyes and braced himself- but this time having five Badges didn't have the same effect.

What happened was that his eyes began hurting and he seemed to have come down with a huge headache, but at least he wasn't throwing up all over the place. Was he developing a sort of tolerance for the Badge's powers now?

He didn't dare risk drawing on their powers anymore, and Wade made sure that Vanessa behaved- she seemed to be taking losing rather badly, but Ash suddenly felt the need to go and take a very long nap. He stumbled back into his tent.

As Ash woke up, he realized he felt better- but not much better. He would clearly have to find someone to give one of the Badges too. Vanessa was clearly not going to be a candidate, but Ash couldn't think of someone who would be fitting for the job just yet.

Ash told his guards that he'd go and start handling business sometime later- he remembered the village that he had passed by and made a note to do something about it.

Wade barged in anyway and said, "I know that you need rest- but the most peculiar thing has happened and I felt that you would like to know."

"What?" Ash asked.

"A ship has suddenly turned up in the desert, of all places. Even stranger is that the people on the ship claim to be from my territory and say that they were swallowed up by the Barrier and deposited there. I've checked back at home and there was a ship that disappeared from near the Barrier."

Ash frowned. "What does that mean?"

"I can't know for sure, but I think that it means that the Barrier is collapsing," Wade said. "The crew members are being brought here as we speak."

* * *

Ash may not have felt very good after his victory kudos to the Badges- but there was someone in Galea who was absolutely delighted when Mary delivered the news to her.

"Lady Selena," Mary said and bowed, making sure that no one could see her contacting the Seventh Gym Leader using a private phone that she had installed a mere few months ago. "As you predicted, Ash has won. Lady Vanessa has been incarcerated, and I await your orders."

A broad smile spread across Selena's face. "Finally! It begins!" She clapped her hands and got up- Mary was unsure why she was taking the news so well.

Selena calmed down. "The game starts now- Mary, go and lick the child's boots- he'll probably let you keep your position. Your services will not be forgotten once I control all of Galea."

Mary opened her mouth to ask a question, but Selena had already disconnected. It was something very unexpected to someone who was used to minutes of flowery conversation before any serious talk began or ended.

Selena, on the other hand, had no concern for etiquette. Certainly not now of all times. She summoned Jenkins to her room.

"It has started," Selena said. "Ash has gotten the Ribbon Badge, and now controls six Badges. We can begin. Ready our army and our fleet, it is time that we go and give His Majesty a little visit."

Jenkins nodded. "If I may ask, why wait until Ash had gotten the sixth Badge?"

"Because that is the loophole in the treaty we drew up," Selena said. "I told His Majesty that just in case we weren't able to stop anyone from challenging our power- we should have a contingency since we would be unable to attack each other. To prevent anyone from becoming too powerful if a situation much like this arose, I added a line saying that if six or more Gym Badges came under the control of a single person- the entire treaty would be null and void. Cancel the lectures I was planned to take- the students will have to do without hearing my pearls of wisdom for the while until I've finally united all of Galea."

Jenkins realized what that meant, and his mind reeled as he considered the consequences of what this meant. "Does this mean that you planned for Ash Ketchum to enter Galea?"

"Indeed," Selena said. "I could never stand to see that idiot occupy the highest position. I had to get back at him but was limited by the treaty. So, from the very beginning, I hatched out this plan. I must say that at several times I was afraid that the boy might fail and be defeated, but he has turned out to be an excellent pawn."

Jenkins realized that this explained why, after all of his trying, he had been unable to find out who had sent the Roserade to Ash Ketchum. Because Selena herself had ordered it, and the murder as well just to cover it up.

He shook his head as he considered just how convoluted and twisted a mind he was dealing with in his mistress and hoped that he wouldn't regret not going the same way as Alan Lazar had.

Then again, he soon received confirmation that Alan Lazar had been removed- so perhaps that time wouldn't come at all. It appeared that he had chosen wisely.

* * *

 **Thirty-Three Years Ago...**

Spring had blossomed, but the disused fields were full of weeds and were not ready for harvest.

As the solitary man trudged up the trail to the small cottage at the side, he remembered how long ago, so very long ago even though it felt like only yesterday when the fields had been freshly plowed.

The cottage at the end of road was empty. The man knocked on the door. There was no response.

The man had known deep in his heart that it was futile waiting for someone to open the door, but the small shred of hope in him made him wait at the doorstep for far too long.

Once he finally accepted that there would be no reply, he went to the back of his house where, in the ancestral burial ground, there were two graves that had not been there before. It had gone into disuse and was home to the weeds now but it was beyond a doubt that this was where his parents died.

No tears fell down his face. He had lost his tears many decades ago, but his rage was as strong as it had been when he had left.

They would pay, he swore to himself. The people who had caused him to suffer like this would suffer in turn.

And in that moment, a flame was lit in his heart. A flame that would eventually consume all of Galea…


	54. VS Vanessa IX

_Lumiose City, Seconds After Clemont's Machine Malfunctioned..._

Clemont had ducked the moment he knew the system was going to blow.

Thankfully Bonnie was on a lower floor, he thought. He heard the sound of glass breaking and then felt the heat released by the machine a second later.

All of a sudden, the room had turned dark as the lighting had gone off, but there was a hole in the ceiling now which meant that a small amount of sunlight managed to get in.

Clemont took a moment to inspect himself. Thankfully, he was unharmed.

"Professor?" Clemont said as he looked for Professor Sycamore. "Oh there you are- ah! Geez!"

Clemont saw that Professor Sycamore hadn't exactly been as lucky as he had been and had been pelted with glass shards. He was bleeding, Clemont didn't think it was very serious but then again he wasn't exactly an expert in such matters.

Clemont rushed to the intercom before he found that it wasn't working and sighed; then he released his Emolga and Magneton. Part of Sycamore's suit was metallic, so Magneton was able to lift him as soon as Clemont made sure to tie the suit around Professor Sycamore tightly before he got on his Emolga and descended to the base of the tower when he realized that the elevator also wasn't working.

Once outside, Clemont rushed Professor Sycamore to the hospital. He noticed that a lot of people seemed worried and were pointing here and there, but he was far too preoccupied to give them much attention.

What he did notice was that there was something wrong with the hospital.

"Oh, Leader Clemont," one of the nurses said to him. "The power just went off everywhere- do you know what's happening?"

"Oh dear," Clemont said. The machine must've let out a strong electromagnetic pulse and killed the power in a large area within Lumiose City. It would be easy enough to put it back on, but they'd probably need his help. "Don't you have a backup generator?"

"Yes, but that's all been diverted to the ICU," the nurse said.

"Well, I'll try hooking up my Ampharos to the wiring then," Clemont said. "I'm sure that'll give it enough juice to work for some time. But please, you need to look at the professor here. He's not waking up."

"You're right, we'll rush him to the casualty," the nurse said.

Clemont fiddled with his thumbs before he realized he should have probably been doing something to help get the power back up online after he managed to hook up Ampharos to the hospital's generator. He didn't want to leave Professor Sycamore like that, but then again, he wasn't helping much just by standing there. And there was going to be real chaos if the power didn't come back up soon.

As Clemont rushed outside the hospital he couldn't help but feel like he was forgetting something… something important. He shook his head and told him that if it was important, he probably wouldn't have forgotten about it.

And it was then that it hit him that he had just left Bonnie alone in Lumiose Tower, and that nothing in there was working and so she'd probably be scared out of her wits.

"Wait up Bonnie- I'm coming!" Clemont shouted and ran as fast as he could towards the Lumiose City gym.

Once Clemont managed to extract Bonnie from the gym and profusely apologized for forgetting about her, he went to correct the city's power supply and got it back up, following which he went to check up on how Professor Sycamore was doing.

Clemont saw that the Professor was awake now.

"Hello there," Professor Sycamore said, a bit woozy from whatever medication they had put him on. "They finally managed to get all the glass out of me. They say I have a concussion so they've gone to get a CT scan done so until then I'll be here for monitoring apparently. Where are Brock and Misty?"

"I can't find them," Clemont said. "I checked the tower completely. They aren't there. I think the machine took them and sent them away."

Professor Sycamore frowned. "Then where are they?"

"The machine would've sent them to Galea, or at least tried too," Clemont said, his voice breaking. "Only… I'm not sure it would've worked and I'm not sure if they would've landed there safely even if they did."

"Well, I'm sure they'll be alright," Professor Sycamore said.

"It's just- it's just that I have no idea why it all happened," Clemont sobbed. "The machine shouldn't have done that by itself." He didn't talk further as he didn't want to worry Professor Sycamore any more.

* * *

It had been a whole month since that incident, and Clemont still hadn't been able to find a trace of Brock or Misty.

As expected, the incident regarding Lumiose City Tower had been breaking news and now there was a Pokemon League investigation into the whole matter.

Once the League officials found out that Clemont had somehow messed up yet again- they had never really forgiven him for the Clembot incident- they had decided to suspend him from his post as Gym Leader for the time being until they decided what to do with him.

"After all, if Mr. Clemont apparently would prefer fiddling with technology rather than perform his duties as a gym leader- if I'm not mistaken, he once tried to get a robot to do them since it didn't give him enough 'free time' to invent- he should just invent, and give the job of gym leader to someone else," the chairman of the committee looking into the incident had told him.

News that Professor Sycamore believed in Galea's existence and other tales of Galea rapidly spread across the whole world, with several people concluding that he was a genius and far many more believing he was crazy.

Clemont rubbed his eyes- the guilt of two Gym Leader's disappearance continuously haunted him. Not to mention that the electromagnetic pulse from his machine had wiped out all the data from any device that was within a ten-mile radius of the machine. Lots of people had complained to him that they had lost their family photos, or movies, or things they had saved up, and many things like televisions were still not working properly. It was estimated that the whole incident had caused several billion Pokedollars' worth of damage.

But setting aside the money, it was Brock and Misty's fate which weighed heavily on him. Ash had had lots of friends- and Brock and Misty had several too and Clemont had received several anonymous messages asking him just who he thought it was to risk people's lives with his machinery. Few people said anything in support of Clemont nowadays, they were limited to his father, Bonnie, and Professor Sycamore mostly.

As such Clemont was doing what most people did when they were disappointed in life and felt broke- he was flipping through the channels on his television screen while eating food that was in no way good for him, in this case an entire tub of chocolate ice cream. Nothing good was on, so he settled on watching the news.

"… and in a very strange turn of events, it seems like a group of twelve dozen Darumaka have vanished from a small Pokemon League daycare for fostering them," a reporter said. "The owners claim that they just went up and vanished suddenly, though League officials are still investigating the matter. This is only the latest in a series of reports of Trainers reporting that Pokemon have suddenly vanished. Some experts opine that there is some sort of super Pokemon thief traveling about. If your Pokemon have also disappeared mysteriously, please report the matter to the Pokemon League." The screen shifted to another reporter.

"And in weather, strange weather patterns have been noticed all over Kalos lately. A rare triple rainbow was seen over Vaniville Town and strange cosmic phenomenon have been seen in the sky."

Clemont suddenly got a call from Professor Sycamore and muted the television. The Professor had recovered a few weeks ago and was back on his feet trying to figure out more things regarding Galea. "Yes Professor?"

"Clemont, you've got to see this," Sycamore said. "We've been looking for real proof that Galea exists, and they're have been strange sightings off the coast of Kanto. People are saying that they've seen an island reappear and disappear off the shore. Sailors aren't even going out anymore. Professor Oak is also here. How fast can you reach Kanto?"

"Give me a few hours," Clemont said and then left a note for Bonnie telling her where he was going before he took his Pokemon, wiped the ice cream off his face, combed his hair, and left for a ferry that would take him to Kanto.

Unfortunately, he was disappointed as it turned out that all ferries to Kanto had been cancelled due to some reason and the next one would take a whole week to come.

"But I need to get to Kanto, quick," Clemont said. "You don't understand, I'm a gym leader and there's something that I need to get done-"

"I'm sorry sir," the receptionist said. "But your privileges as a gym leader have currently been suspended by the League. If you still had them we may have been able to arrange for something, but in our current circumstances we can't do anything. We regret the inconvenience caused."

Clemont stormed out of the place. He had barely taken five steps when he heard a huge roar and a giant shadow suddenly enveloped him.

"Whoa!" Clemont said as he saw the Pokemon that had descended besides him. It was a huge Charizard- and a very well-trained one at that judging from its appearance.

The Charizard sniffed Clemont before it seemed to make a noise of approval.

Weird, Clemont thought. Did the Charizard smell something on Clemont that reminded him of something… or someone? Then, he realized just who he was talking to.

"You're Ash's Charizard, aren't you?" Clemont asked.

The Pokemon nodded.

"It's great that you're here," Clemont said. "You see, I think Ash disappeared somewhere off of Kanto, and I can't get there in time with the ferries not working. Do you mind if I hop on for a ride?"

The Charizard didn't say anything, but did stoop a bit so it would be easier for Clemont to get on.

Clemont had a lot of questions- namely on why Ash's Charizard had run away from wherever it was being trained, and just why it had decided to come to him, but he guessed it was best not to look a gift Charizard in the mouth so he decided to keep his questions for later.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! I'll be honest here, I was going to start Selena's arc, and I remembered how all of the arcs have lasted nine chapters up till now. Vanessa's arc was supposed to be a deviation from that- but I didn't want to go ahead and give her fewer chapters than any other Gym Leader of Galea, so I added this in-between.**

 **Selena's arc will be far longer than nine chapters- it will be the longest arc actually, I promise, and the majority of questions you've had up till now will be resolved. As such I can't wait to finally write it.**

 **Also, someone did want Ash's Charizard to come- and he will play a role in future events, if only much later on.**


	55. VS Selena I

Sir Fredrick panted as he burst into the open fields which were smothered in berries of all varieties. It was vital that this message reach His Majesty the Eighth Gym Leader, the Emperor of Ten Thousand Years, Arceus' Favorite Among Men, the Celestial One, etc. etc.

His Majesty's entire domain was an island located to the far north of Galea. It was isolated from the rest of the main continent by a strip of sea controlled by Selena, and as telephones and other electronic devices went haywire around the place for some reason, the rest of the people living on the mainland had very little idea- if any, of what went on in His Majesty's domain.

As such many rumors- mostly untrue, circulated around about the island and what went on in there. Sir Fredrick had visited the mainland once- to deliver a message to Sir Ash Ketchum, and while in a tavern there he had heard the oddest stories about his homeland- namely that there were rivers of honey that flowed through the place and people with backwards feet lived there!

Sir Fredrick shook his head and proceeded through the huge maze of berry plants all of which belonged to His Majesty.

His Majesty, much like Vanessa, had decided to completely abandon the idea of actually running his territory and simply reserved all the land near the foothills of the peaks where the headquarters of the Four Heavenly Kings used to be for himself and stayed there. It was only a small fraction of land compared to the rest of the island so no one could call him overly greedy- and it was necessary so that no one would attempt to make the climb up- not that many could make it through Victory Road anyway.

Fredrick finally saw him, who was tending to a Pecha Berry plant like it was his own child.

"Milord," Fredrick said and bowed. "The Senate bears a message for you."

His Majesty didn't reply for a full minute, but Fredrick had long since been accustomed to that. Fredrick had learned that there was something odd about His Majesty, mainly in how he talked to other people- something that was perhaps a product of living in near-complete isolation from all human contact for extremely long stretches of time.

"Do tell me," His Majesty finally said and bid Fredrick to stand up.

His Majesty was an extremely tall raven-haired man who liked to wear a crisp business suit that had been all the rage in the region of Unova a long, long, time ago when he had been there. He was extremely handsome with a face that stood timeless thanks to the Celestial Badge that he carried. As always, his entire demeanor awed Fredrick.

"The Senate recently met," Fredrick explained once he found his voice. The Senate was the body that His Majesty had chosen to form to govern the island. It was a democratic body and every single citizen of the island older than sixteen years of age could vote whenever it met.

Such a thing was an oddity in Galea and only existed because His Majesty knew how corrupt governors could be and assumed that the people were more than capable of learning how to manage themselves. When he had first ordered such, the population of the island had been a meager twelve thousand people but had now swollen to one hundred and forty thousand at this time. As such, it was nearly impossible to convene the Senate as it used to be- even though only a small fraction usually bothered to show up. There were plans being made to convert the Senate into a republic body, but those plans were still being considered.

Of course, even though the Senate existed, His Majesty still had complete control over the island and could veto any decision they made but used this ability so rarely that the Senate was for all practical purposes what ruled the island.

However, there were times when the Senate knew that it needed His Majesty and (infinitely more importantly) the power of his Badge to lead them in a certain matter, and never had a time come like this when they truly needed it.

"Milord, the Senate has begun to hear the most distressing of tidings brought from the outside world," Fredrick said. "And there is the matter that a few days earlier, a snowstorm somehow hit the island even though it is the height of summer. And there have been unusual sightings from the sea- ships from Lady Selena's domain have been wandering quite close to our borders. They seem to be loaded with weapons, according to some reports."

His Majesty didn't respond and instead turned to inspect another berry plant. Rather than respond to Sir Fredrick's request, he said, "Tell me one thing, Fredrick. You were once a Gym Leader, and a good one, were you not?"

"Yes," Fredrick said. It was actually one of the reasons why the Senate trusted him so much, and although the Senate was a democratic body, usually Fredrick ended up getting his way since he was so popular and people usually looked to him as His Majesty's right-hand man though he had never officially been given such a designation. As such, whenever the Senate wanted to talk to His Majesty, Fredrick was always chosen to deliver it. "I take it you remember, of course, Milord, given how you deposed me yourself?" Fredrick tried not to let too much sarcasm leak into the words.

"So tell me this then," His Majesty said after quite some time. "What is the value of life, in your opinion?"

Fredrick was confused. "I, well, life is important, Milord," he said lamely.

"Such a simple statement, and yet so true," His Majesty replied. "What could be more precious than life? Throughout mine, I've held but one weakness- an ability to kill even the minutest of creatures if I can help it. Life in all forms should be revered. One of the very first things I did upon claiming this Badge was to ban capital punishment throughout the island."

Fredrick nodded. That was all true, but what did it have to do with what was going on?

"And yet," His Majesty added, his features darkening, "there are times when I believe that it is necessary, or even justified to take life." He then paused. "If only I had killed Selena when I had got the chance. I may have defeated her, but at the last second I hesitated with the finishing blow. While I can believe that every person deserves a second chance, I can also say with near certainty that if there is a single person in all of Galea whose death is justified, it would be that of the witch sitting just south of my borders."

His Majesty then turned his gaze towards the sky. "What is happening, Sir Fredrick, is that the Barrier has been greatly weakened. I have heard, from my network of spies who send me news via Wingulls and other birds, that there have been odd occurrences happening not only here, but all across Galea. A ship disappeared near the border to end up in the desert far away. It has snowed for some reason on our island, somehow a horde of Darumaka appeared out of the ether and razed a village, and Pokemon not native to Galea at all have suddenly been spotted."

His Majesty's face darkened even further as he said, "I've regretted sparing her life several times- but always persuaded myself that it was the right thing to do. But that woman has plotted against me from the very beginner. She had brought a child- this Ash Ketchum- from outside and to do so she harmed the Barrier. She probably didn't even notice how much damage had been done to it, but it has spread and even more was done when another force from outside broke through. It needs mending urgently, otherwise, while there are several scenarios possible, the most likely one would be that all of Galea will collapse on itself and the gravitational force generated by the collapsing spatio-temporal matter will cause it to be reduced to nothing larger than a grain of sand." His Majesty said this with such levity- as if he was talking about how the weather might be the next day.

Fredrick gulped. "What are we to do?"

"Selena, no doubt, is preparing a fleet to strike at us," His Majesty said. "That is the first problem we must deal with."

A bead of sweat slid down Fredrick's face. "Surely you jest Milord- the treaty would forbid such an action!"

"The treaty is no more," His Majesty said. "Her forces will arrive, I think, within the next week." He then smiled. "Do not look so worried- this is all only bad news if there were no one to stop her. _I_ will face her in battle when she comes. _I_ will defeat her- and end her like I should have. And _I_ will finally unite all of Galea by gathering the eight Gym Badges together, I will fix the Barrier, and finally, after such a long time, we will have peace."

Fredrick wasn't very convinced. "Selena is very strong sire- are you certain we're up to the task of defending ourselves from her?" What he really meant to ask was if His Majesty was sure that he could overcome her.

"Oh, she's had over thirty years to plan for this," His Majesty said. "But then again, so have I. There's been a benefit to leaving my duties for the Senate to perform- it frees up all of my time for training and bit of my hobbies on the side. I have been practicing for over thirty-two years, right here near Victory Road which leads up to the Elite Four's Headquarters. Selena was powerful, true, but her greatest weakness is that she believes that she has achieved it all- that it is physically impossible for someone to outdo her or even to equal what she has become. So what has she done? She devotes her time to endless scheming, to fiddling with new toys so she can spy on others better, and to teaching." His Majesty snorted. "Some teacher she is- one who thinks she's mastered it all. I cannot wait to see her expression when we finally fight. The others have long since believed that I have done nothing but while away my time all these years… but then again most of them are currently imprisoned so I believe that that in itself shows how much that they know and how much their opinions mattered."

"What should we do right now then?" Fredrick asked.

His Majesty frowned. "Given that she's going to try and invade us, a counter-invasion would be the proper way to respond. But given that Constantinople's population far outnumbers our own and we do not have a fleet ready, we must prepare instead to receive her attack. Tell the Senate that they are dissolved from this moment onward- I will be personally overseeing the defense and matters of the state from now on until the threat has passed."

"Yes, Milord," Fredrick said. "And what of the Barrier? What can we do about it until you obtain all eight Gym Badges?"

"I can attempt to prop it up, so to speak, for a while," His Majesty said. "But Selena will not dare delay- even she must realize that she doesn't have too much time left before the Barrier collapses and swallows her up too. She will come to me, and she will be the one to challenge me. We do not need to worry about that."

"And what of Ash Ketchum?" Fredrick asked.

His Majesty shrugged. "He is not a problem. Most likely, I believe, when Selena tells her the truth he will surrender his Badges to her of his own volition, and even if he doesn't, he is hardly a problem right now compared to Selena. We need to strengthen our borders- I take it that our navy is as underdeveloped as it always was?"

"It is nothing to be proud of," Fredrick said. "Even though we have more ships than we did a few years ago."

"Then a sea battle is out of the question then," His Majesty said. "We must play to our strengths- her Badge will be weaker in my territory than it is in her own. I may be able to sink most of her ships- though of course she would have planned for that and must have several Water Pokemon available. She could probably push far into our territory if I were not there."

"Just a suggestion, Milord," Fredrick said. "But why not create a barrier like she has around her own domain? With the Elite Four Champion's power on our side-"

"There's no point," His Majesty interjected. "I need her Badge to fix what has happened to the Barrier, so it is necessary that she come and attack us so I may defeat her. Not to mention she's a crafty one and I don't believe any barrier will stop her indefinitely."

His Majesty then began examining his berry plants for the next ten minutes before he finally said something. "For our battle plan, evacuate everyone near the coast and shift them here, where they will be safe inland. Any fighters that we can manage to find- and by that I mean any Trainer willing to put up a fight can be recruited into our army." He turned towards Victory Road. "After all, the Pokemon within there are strong enough to be useful even in an amateur's hands. Have lots of Poke Balls delivered to me- I'm going to need them to go on a catching spree."

His Majesty then turned his gaze towards the mountains- Victory Road was a punishing path that led to the place where the Elite Four and the Elite Four Champion used to live. It was there that the new Elite Four members would learn the secret contained deep within and later on recluse themselves. It was there that he had faced, and defeated Arthur, Emily, Ashley, and Gregor of the Elite Four not once, but twice.

Fredrick was saying something, but His Majesty was far too lost in his own thoughts to notice.

It was up in those hills, that, when the Elite Four had found out that the Gym Leaders had gathered against them- they, rather than fighting, had decided to flee Galea like Rattata jumping off a sinking ship. They had hoped to flee to some other region and beg the people there for help- but had been caught, defeated, and imprisoned before that could happen.

"… and sir, we do not have materials for artillery which we believe the enemy might have, there is enough wood but it does not rival the new technologies which Selena might have," Fredrick said.

His Majesty hadn't heard most of the conversation- but he wasn't about to ask Fredrick to repeat himself. "Tell the Senate to look into it- I do not want to be burdened with minor details. If there are no new artillery devices, we will simply have to make do with old-fashioned ones." The words were spat from his mouth with an underlying anger that surprised both Fredrick and His Majesty.

"Sire... you just ordered the Senate dissolved yourself," Fredrick said.

"Oh," His Majesty said and frowned, getting more irritated by the minute, but composing himself enough to say, "I simply meant that I will be interfering in their decisions more, of course I still want the Senate to remain and function as it always has. Go tell them this- I need to look into certain matters for now."

Fredrick wanted to protest and ask for him to actually do something- but once Fredrick took a good look at His Majesty's face and combined it with his tone, he knew that the Gym Leader wasn't even truly listening anymore. Fredrick nodded, bowed, and then took his leave.

His Majesty watched Fredrick leave. A wave of guilt rose up in him- he shouldn't have been so rude, and those complaints were genuine. But this was quashed as he knew that he had bigger issues to handle.

His Majesty took a deep breath. He couldn't help but pause and wonder… he had said that he would kill Selena now if it were necessary and it was almost certain that the time would come, but a large part of him rejected the idea, even though he was able to rationalize it perfectly within his head. He could rationalize why he would do so completely, and yet when he thought about it he felt his head throb and deep down, knew that it would not be so easy.

It seemed that it was just not who he was as a person. Killing, no matter how much he justified it, seemed to be something quite beyond him.

But, he thought with a malicious grin which would've made anyone watching him wonder why he was smiling to himself like that- he was definitely at the very least going to enjoy tormenting her. That, at the very least, was something that she deserved and something he could dish out without feeling any guilt.

He was sure that even now, she was busy putting the finishing details to her fleet and was preparing to sail across and take his territory in what she surely must believe to be an easy victory.

His Majesty smiled as he contemplated the thought of crushing her… and he also considered not defeating her so easily. No, perhaps he would let her army advance onto his island and stay there for a week or so, watching as they struggle to survive off the land but giving her a false sense of hope and security before he moved out to eliminate her.

He stretched his arms. It was time for all those years of training to pay off.

 **A/N: And at last we reach the Selena chapter! We can finally get to learn important stuff! *throws confetti***

 **Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	56. VS Selena II

**A/N: Thanks for the review, Crestillia. Yes, I was thinking about the actual city when thinking of a name for Selena's capital and was reading about the Fourth Crusade, so then that happened.**

A pair of red eyes glared at Selena from the darkness. A pair of red eyes that simply watched her, stared at her, and sent shivers down her spine.

The eyes vanished suddenly and a small path materialized out of the void that surrounded her. Selena looked around worriedly and reached for her trustworthy Pokemon only to find they weren't there. Her Badge was also gone.

It's just a dream- she told herself and tried to move her arms in real life or to wake up but she found herself instead walking along the lonely path.

Along the way she saw a group of Gastly dancing to a tune only they could hear, she heard the twisted sounds which came from Pokemon tormented by horrors, and the persistent lack of light made her trip and nearly fall every other five seconds over weeds that she was sure didn't even exist until she approached them.

Along the pathway she saw statues showing each of the Four Heavenly Kings as she remembered them in their last moments of struggle. The statues were made out of malachite of all things and the details were flawless, as if Medusa herself had frozen them like that. Tears flowed down Emily's eyes, while Ashley and Arthur seemed to accept their inevitable loss with stoic calmness.

It was Gregor, always the cleverest one, who was laughing and sneering at Selena, as if even in defeat, there was something that he knew and she didn't. It was what had kept her awake for so many nights as she pondered just what it was that made him say, even as all four of his Pokemon were knocked out, "I've already won, Selena. We are victorious."

Oh, the others thought she was crazy. All of them did, even Linnea. Truth be told she suspected it quite a lot many times herself- what if it was just a bluff? It was, in all likelihood, something he had said simply to unnerve her- after all, with his apprentice dead and allies currently either in the grave or scattered, what plans could he have possibly made that Selena wouldn't have detected already?

But then again, her mind always whirred and considered the possibility that there was something, something that she had inexplicably missed. It had started out as a tiny seed in her mind, and like all thoughts, had just grown larger and larger until it was now a deeply entrenched idea that she just couldn't get out of her head no matter how hard she tried.

She shook her head then and proceeded onward along the path. The thing was that she knew from experience that if she dwelt on a matter for too long it would run through her head in an endless loop until it nearly drove her insane. She had to try to take her mind off of it.

The path suddenly opened into a clearing table was lit by a dim camp fire. There was a table around which were seated Thomdolt, Marley, Freyja, Linnea, Wade, and Vanessa. All of them had vacant, blank expressions on their faces and seemed to be as lifeless as a swarm of Shuppets.

Marley turned his head towards her. "Are you ready?"

"Ready for what?" Selena asked.

Out of nowhere, lights suddenly turned on- the huge and infernally bright kind you would find in a stadium and they momentarily blinded her. Another member had joined the party- His Majesty who was dressed in a simple peasant's robe as he had done on that day so very long ago.

"We want to see a rematch," Wade said. His voice was oddly flat and emotionless.

"I do not have any Pokemon though," Selena protested. "My Pokemon are strong- they have been with me through the ages. I will not lose so long as they stand by my side."

"You cannot have them," Freyja replied.

"We have taken them away," Vanessa said.

Marley then motioned towards the table and Selena saw six Poke Balls kept there that hadn't been there before.

"Use these," Marley said.

The battle began, but before it did, Selena saw a glimpse of the same two red eyes she had seen earlier. And this time, she squinted and noticed that it wasn't just a pair of disembodied red eyes floating in the darkness, no, there was a body- just that it was blended with the darkness in such a way that all she could see was a dim outline. But the outline looked so familiar... She had seen that somewhere, she knew that it was familiar somehow and with a jolt she realized that it was important for her to recognize what it was , but the thought slipped from her as the eyes vanished completely.

The battle had begun, and Selena sent out her first Pokemon which was a Bidoof which was taken down with ease by His Majesty's Swampert.

His Majesty smiled. "Not so mighty now then are you?"

She heard laughter echo from the surroundings though she couldn't see anyone there. She bit her lip and sent out her next Pokemon- a Magikarp that was similarly taken down with ease by His Majesty.

Tears streamed down her face. It was the same dream all over again- a repetition of what had happened all those years ago. She was going to be defeated- and not because of a lack of skill, but because she didn't have her precious unbeatable Pokemon with her.

Her next Poke Ball revealed a Weedle, the one after that a Caterpie, followed by a Wurmple and finally a Feebas.

She hadn't made a dent to His Majesty's Swampert and she watched as that undeserving toad was crowned emperor. Out of the shadows came Vanessa and Freyja, both dressed in long blue gowns studded with emeralds who took out a golden crown studded with diamonds the size of eggs which they placed gently on His Majesty's head. As the crown touched his forehead, his rags disappeared and were replaced robes of the finest silk with the image of a Salamence on them.

Selena, however, was left to sink into the mud, wailing and calling out for her Pokemon to help her, to rescue her…

* * *

Selena finally managed to wake up then. She woke up in a room that was in itself as big as Ash's house back in Kanto and was furnished with shelves of books and all manners of gadgets- though any kind of camera was conspicuously absent from her bedroom. There were windows whose curtains were drawn but were diaphanous enough for her to tell that it wasn't light out. She would try to get some more sleep then, if possible.

"Is everything all right, mistress?" one of her maids asked. The lights had been turned on and they were irritatingly similar to the lights she had seen in her dream. Selena took a glance around the room, no, there was nothing out of the ordinary, just around six maids looking at her patiently and slightly fearfully.

Lately, with preparations for the siege on His Majesty's domain, Selena had found it increasingly more difficult to fall asleep. Not to mention that the feeling she had of being watched, of there being someone else with her in the room when there was no one had increased to the point where she couldn't sleep alone in a room anymore and demanded that her staff attend to her at every hour of the day and night.

She found it easier to live with the feeling of being watched so long as there were actual people watching her. She didn't even feel like going to the bathroom alone, and instead had a toilet installed much like a stall in a public restroom where she would do her business and would be reassured that there were her maids standing outside.

"Water," she croaked, her voice raspy as a glass of water was handed to her. She only drank half the glass and left the rest as she contemplated just how her life had led her to this moment.

She couldn't sleep, eat, or drink properly anymore. Her servants were asking something else, but she ignored them. The same thoughts intruded into her mind and began running repeatedly. She had to defeat His Majesty, she had to unite Galea, she had to find out what Gregor had been planning.

It was then that she remembered that she had seen something in her dream… something that she had felt at the time to be important, it was a fact that she had wanted to remember when she woke up. But the more she cast her mind back to what she had seen the more she found that she couldn't remember for the life of her.

She finally gave up and returned to sleep. The lights were dimmed, but a small night-light was still on as per her request as she fell asleep, this time, thankfully, without any dreams that she would remember when she woke up.

* * *

Selena felt marginally better later on after some rest when she went back to her command center, a room larger than her bedroom which was filled with people working on computers, jotting down numbers, or talking loudly on phones.

Selena watched all of this from a smaller office with glass windows that allowed her to see everything that happened outside, and at the same time provided a private space where she could confer with her more senior advisors. These usually included Lazar and Jenkins, but with Lazar having turned traitor and having been rightfully executed the position was now empty, a position that she would have to see to it that it would be filled before she went and formally declared war on His Majesty.

The glass was not completely soundproof as Selena wanted to hear a bit of the sounds meld into a large comfortable backdrop as she poured over all the information that was brought to her. She found it relaxing, kind of like the pitter-patter of the rain on the pavement.

Today though, her attention was drawn not to her reports but to an old, bald man who had come along with Jenkins into her office.

"Morning, Milady," Jenkins said and bowed, with whoever had come with him doing the same. Jenkins, like most of her employees, was wearing a crisp black-and-white business suit, but the other man had a white coat on, probably marking him out as a laboratory assistant of scientist of some sort. Both of them however appeared to be very nervous, there was sweat coating the old man's forehead even though the room was air-conditioned. "This is Dr. Jerry Argon. I have, well, ah, brought him to um, check up on you, Milady."

"I do not need a doctor," Selena said, raising an eyebrow. "In case you have somehow developed amnesia, the Badges prevent all kinds of illnesses."

Jenkins paused for a few seconds as if wondering if he should really say what he was about to say next. "Well, Dr. Argon here is a psychiatrist."

It was well known that when it came to physical ailments the Badges were hands-down nearly perfect unless one were to overload on their power, but their record on preventing mental illness were a bit more sketchy. Several prior Gym Leaders were known to display odd behavior- and by that it was meant far stranger behavior than what Freyja was prone to do- some of them were known to have become full-blown insane before they were deposed of. Among the various symptoms, excessive paranoia was an extremely common feature- though that probably originated form the Gym Leader's tenuous positions.

Of course, if you subscribed to the theory that all psychological illnesses ultimately had some sort of traceable physical cause, it would be odd that the Badges couldn't fix them.

"I do not need a therapist," Selena said pointedly. "I thank you for your concern for me, Jenkins-" her tone seemed to convey that she was considering having Jenkins skewered right now- "but I am perfectly fine."

Psychiatry had evolved quite a lot in Galea from its heyday, but it didn't mean that there wasn't still a stigma attached with it. Selena needed several things in her life, but having more people questioning her sanity was not one of them.

"With all due respect, if I can be so bold," Jenkins said nervously. "Mistress, I think the two of us can agree on one thing- recently your behavior has changed quite a lot. Especially your sleep patterns. I have noticed personally that your ah, efficiency had dropped. I made this rather bold step, and I apologize for doing so without informing you, but I simply believed that you would not have agreed to see a doctor."

Selena rubbed her forehead. She considered just vaporizing the two of them, but it was hard enough already to find a replacement for Lazar, and she couldn't pull off a campaign of this size on her lonesome.

"I admit that I have had… problem," Selena said. "But you do not need to be concerned regarding them. The root cause of them was my defeat to His Majesty long ago, and once I've defeated him, and once I've done so I'll be fine and this rot in my head will finally go away."

Jenkins and Dr. Argon said nothing for a while before Dr. Argon piped up, "Lady Selena, if you would just spare a moment of your time, perhaps I could help with regarding your insomnia."

"I do not want sleeping pills," Selena said. "I do not need something that I will only get addicted to later on."

"We can attempt other regimes, a Jigglypuff's singing, for example," Dr. Argon said. "But I have been told that you have suddenly began feeling a sensation that you are being watched, is that correct?"

"It is not a feeling," Selena said as she slammed a hand that used to be well manicured onto the table. "Oh, yes, it started off as a simple feeling well enough long ago. But I have become more and more certain- there is something that is watching me. I do not know how, but it does not leave any presence, and seems to be able to follow me everywhere. The only thing that I can tell regarding it is that it exists."

"You seem to be very sure," Dr. Argon said. "Just what makes you think that you know it is there?"

"Because I can _feel_ it," Selena said. "I can feel it watching me, I can feel it observing my every move even when there is no one in the room- I scan the walls for cameras ever other day to find nothing, but I know that it hasn't stopped watching me, not for a single second."

Dr. Argon paused for a second and said, "You say the word 'it' all the time. Why?"

"How do you mean?"

"Many of my patients believe that there are several people watching them," Dr. Argon said. "That or they oscillate between using a singular and then plural. You say the words 'it' only, how are you so sure that only a single person is watching you."

Selena stared at her hands for several minutes. "I do not know…" she muttered before she added, " "Was it because of those single pair of red eyes…" but so softly that neither Dr. Argon nor Jenkins heard.

"Do you think you know why it watches you?" Dr. Argon asked. "Do you think it is a man or woman?"

"I do not know, and for that matter I don't care either," Selena said. "I have no idea if it is a man or women, or something else. But it doesn't matter. The only thing that I am concerned about is dethroning His Majesty. Why something is watching me is irrelevant to that goal, and so is irrelevant to me as well. It is simply… unnerving as a feeling that is all. It goes away whenever I am surrounded by people though, and I admit that my new arrangements may seem strange, I am comfortable with them and I am sure that no one has been duly bothered by it." She looked the two of them in the eyes and dared them to disagree with her. Neither of them took the bait.

"Ah," Dr. Argon said. "Have you ever heard voices when no one was there when you were alone and in broad daylight? Have you suffered from seizures? Have you-"

"No, and no to all of your questioning," Selena said. "I have said all that I wish to."

"I see," Dr. Argon said, treating Selena as if she was an Electrode about to burst. "Forgive me for my questioning then. If there is anything troubling you however, you can always add that."

Selena didn't say anything to answer Dr. Argon, but just said, "Please wait outside. I wish to talk to Jenkins here in private."

"Of course, of course," Dr. Argon said, who seemed to be very happy to have an excuse to leave the room.

Once he was outside, Selena said, "I do not want some of this nonsense again, do you understand?"

Jenkins nodded. "Yes ma'am."

"And never think that you are irreplaceable," Selena said. "You have been valuable to me, that may be true, but don't dare to think even for a second that you're so high up that you cannot be removed. I had not qualms about getting rid of Lazar, let alone you."

Jenkins nodded.

"Now get back to work," Selena said, her good mood from early now virtually gone. All of these were distractions, distractions from what was important- putting His Majesty back into his place. Jenkins made his leave to go gather all the new reports and tell his summary to Selena.

Jenkins was talking to Dr. Argon for a minute though, but Selena ignored them and considered if she had made a mistake. At one point, she had wanted to appoint Lazar as her right hand and not Jenkins, but if there was one thing that Selena couldn't stand it was subordinates who thought far too highly of themselves and Lazar had been letting power get to his head. Jenkins got the post despite Lazar's seniority. Given that Lazar had turned tail, this mean that Selena had probably been right, but at the same Selena wondered if Lazar might have turned on her partly because he had been stood up for the promotion.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading.**


	57. VS Selena III

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews Julie Togepi. Selena isn't actually insane, but more on that later.  
**

Ash rubbed his face. It was bad enough regarding all the crazy things that were happening- on top of all that it seemed that hauling five Badges around was still far more than he could handle at the moment.

He had heard about the ship from its crew members and that was only the tip of the iceberg. Somehow, a herd of Darumaka had gone and burnt down a small village just outside Sandalwood Forest- and they weren't even native to Galea!

But Ash could deal with all that. He could deal with any incident that seemed to happen in some remote area far away from where he was.

The thing that was keeping him up at night, however, was the sky.

The sky had been normal up till a few hours ago when some people started noticing cracks in it. Yes, the sky itself was somehow cracking up like a broken mirror.

Now that was something that was hard to ignore or to just say, "Well, I'm sure it's weird but it isn't that terrible and maybe it'll fix itself"- not only for Ash, but for pretty much all of Galea. As could be imagined, people were running around screaming about how the apocalypse was imminent. Things had gotten so bad near the coast that Wade had gone there to calm things down.

Ash on the other hand, was feeling too nauseous most of the time to travel, and so he was attempting to address the population under his control using radio.

"And so, I'd just like to repeat that I would urge everyone to calm down," Ash said, reading from the pamphlet prepared for him by Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet into a microphone. "Those these odd circumstances are certainly disturbing, in these testing times we must all make sure to preserve law and order as nothing will be accomplished if by our society slowly spiraling into chaos. We must uphold the rule of the law. Please stay tuned for further updates and work on getting the message across to poorer sections of society."

Brock gave Ash a thumbs-up and they turned off the mike. Radios weren't all that common in Galea anyway, so it was probably likely that Ash's efforts had gone to waste for the most part, but he had to try. Not to mention the whole speech he had given had seemed ridiculously verbose, but Mr. Jennings had told him that it was the kind of speech that the nobility generally preferred and it was mostly them who had the radios in the first place.

"There's a phone call for you, Ash," Misty said as an attendant told her. "From Selena."

"About time," Ash said. He had been expecting something from her- something resembling an attempt to negotiate.

Not for the first time as Ash left the tent he was thinking that he really should have given one of his Badges to someone else. Keeping five of them at one time was like wearing a ten-pound helmet on your head all the time.

Up till now, Ash had hardly appreciated when other people told him just how hard it was to try and unite Galea. Ash had always thought that if a kid like him could do it, other people should've been able to do so too. But then again, if even half of them felt like he did when they collected more Badges than what they could handle he could see why they might stop.

"Pika pii," Pikachu said sympathetically as it trailed alongside Ash. Ash's Pokemon were one of his few companions aside from his friends (he kept telling himself that they were his friends, not employees or worse, servants) who were all trying to be really nice to him. Sadly, Ash knew in his heart that he was repaying them by being a huge and complete jerk.

It was the constant throbbing in his head- he couldn't think straight for longer than a minute and would begin shouting about the stupidest things. He slept for fourteen hours a day just to get away from the headaches which no medication seemed to be able to relieve.

Ash was honestly just considering finding the first person that he knew and handing them a Badge over so he could live in peace, and as a matter of fact several times throughout the day he seriously considered doing so before stopping himself at the last second. Sure, he could have that person swear an oath and all, but there was a loophole in every contract, so he had to be careful who he chose.

And so, his mind was always on a constant merry-go-round of anxiety.

But he pushed those thoughts away as he approached the telephone. He was going to have to talk to Selena, and if there was one thing that he was sure of it was that it was stupid to go and look weak or unsure in front of your enemy.

Gulliver was away trying to calm down the local villages along with Mary, and almost everyone else including Mr. Jennings, Duke Hamnet, and Celera were doing the same in other places, so Brock and Misty were the only two that Ash knew well. They both stood out of range of the telephone's screen as Ash sat down, but they could hear everything.

"Hello child," Selena said, almost sounding bored.

"What're you wearing?" Ash asked. It looked like some sort of old armor, but it was made out of wood instead of any kind of metal and was painted crimson red. Of course, any kind of armor was pointless really for a Gym Leader.

"Ceremonial," Selena said. "Considering the fact that I'm going to go and strike His Majesty in his very den, I thought I should leave my realm with a dramatic exit."

"What do y-" Ash said before he was cut off.

"Silence child, I do not have much patience left," Selena said. "Now, allow me to speak first. I will be quick about this- I brought you here to Galea. I was the one who broke the barrier to bring you here in the first place. I modified your Pokedex- could you think of another Gym Leader capable of manipulating the Elite Four's own voices? I have been secretly guiding you from the start. I refused to give any actual help to Marley, or Thomdolt, and I'm sure you're enjoying that Roserade I gifted you. Then again, I am assuming that you have already figured much of this out given that I cannot track you with that Pokedex anymore."

"Why?" Ash asked.

"When six Badges of Galea fall under the control of one person or one person and his stewards, the Accord is completely null and void," Selena said. "I can do whatever I want now. Granted, the plan wasn't for Wade to go and fight you, I expected you to come to me so that I would take five Badges from you and so have six in total, strike at His Majesty, and then deal with Wade later. But even though that tiny little bit hasn't gone according to plan it does not matter. I also did not expect the Barrier to unravel so fast, whatever your friends did has damaged it significantly. With all that said and done, I would like for you to hand over your Badges to me."

Ash blinked. "Uh, no? Why would I just give them to you?"

"Because it is pointless to resist," Selena said. "And didn't you say that you wanted to get out of Galea and go back home? Then go out- the Barrier's been going haywire enough that you could easily get out with the protection of your Gym Badges and never come back again. I could easily lead you out for that matter, if you'd just hand them all over to me it would be so much simpler for all of us."

"No," the answer came from Ash almost immediately.

"Has the lure of power corrupted you then? I thought children were supposed to be pure," Selena said with a sly smile. "But it seems that you've become one of us so very soon and in such a short span of time."

"No, it's because you're all crazy," Ash said. "You've done nothing but sit around while most of the people in Galea rotted away in poverty and you were the one who caused this whole mess by disturbing the Barrier, even after how much you used to say that the Barrier was important."

"Oh, it is important," Selena said. "But it will remain structurally stable enough to perform its function for quite some time. And who do you think you are for that matter? Has someone gotten it into your tiny little head that you're a hero of some sort? That you're here to lift Galea from several decades of darkness? You're nothing but a pawn child, a pawn I used as long as I felt was appropriate. I have no use for you anymore. The Elite Four never wanted to help you- they don't know you exist. I have been in complete and total control all this time while you ran around playing conqueror. So do yourself a favor and give up- I don't want to have to divert extra troops to taking over your pitiful realm. And you are pathetically weak child, you have not seen my level of skill ever before in your life, I guarantee you that. So what will it be?" She had the sweetest smile on, like a nursery school teacher would have when a kindergartner would tell her that he wanted to become president or something like that.

Ash spoke unflinchingly, along with Brock and Misty, "No."

Selena's smile evaporated and she smacked the screen so Ash saw her palm slide across the screen. "Damn you child! I will enjoy slowly destroying you and all those you love!"

The call was cut off.

"Not very subtle, is she?" Misty asked.

"Yeah," Ash said. Suddenly, an idea struck him. There was something that Selena had said that made him realize that there was a possibility that he hadn't thought of before.

"Hey guys, Selena said that I could get out," Ash said. "With my Badges at least, and if she says that I could tunnel out safely, I mean, she wouldn't want the whole thing to collapse it should be safe enough. So we could go outside Galea and back to Kanto."

"You really want to leave?" Brock asked. The unspoken question was that the three of them might be able to get out, but that in the process they'd be leaving everyone else in Galea behind.

Ash shook his head. "I don't want to get out of here- not permanently. Don't worry, I'm not going to leave Gulliver or any of the others here behind. Now, I need to ask around to figure out if it might be able to work first- do you know where Wade's scientists are right now? Is there a phone at one of their research facilities?"

* * *

Constantinople was Galea's crown city. For that matter, the Gym Leader Selena basically controlled no territory save for the city itself and the outskirts going up to fifty miles form the city's current limits. Sure, there was a bit of the ocean surrounding His Majesty's domain, but it was fairly nothing compared to the city.

A city home to over five million people, it was the only place in Galea that would still be considered somewhat modern and up-to-date when compared to how far the rest of the world had gone. While the other Gym Leaders were forced to buy all of their new tech at exorbitant prices, all of them were developed right here in Constantinople, Galea's hub for the latest in whatever the people at Selena's labs had cooked up.

As such, while in the rest of Galea telephones were reserved for the wealthy (read the Gym Leaders and their favorites) it was rare to find a household without one in Constantinople. Newer cell phones were the craze now with the wealthier inhabitants.

Selena's domain had the largest percentage of urban dwellers in all of Galea. While most other residents of Galea lived in makeshift mud huts or wooden cottages, multistoried apartment buildings were the norm in Constantinople. Selena was confident enough to not refuse Pokemon training to the masses like Marley, Thomdolt, Freyja, and Linnea had and so her Pokemon Trainers were the best in Galea. And all of the new technology needed skilled workers, which led to one of the highest literacy rates in the history of Galea and a very high life expectancy.

All in all, hands down, Constantinople was _the_ place to be in Galea. If Ash had to choose somewhere to live in Galea, it would be in Constantinople with pretty much nothing coming even close to it- the only drawback being the Secret Service snooping around but for most citizens they were simply a dark rumour that didn't involve them much in the slightest.

All of this meant that Selena, with her monopoly on technology, was the richest Gym Leader, which was what had helped pay for all the ships that they were sending to the north. It also paid for the large standing army that Selena had continued to maintain even after the Accord had been signed- an army that was extremely lethal given how Selena didn't restrict Pokemon ownership and encouraged her Trainers to battle and become stronger.

She herself taught some of the more prodigious students, but those classes had been discontinued.

The only problem currently with such a large military force was figuring out just where to send it, given that Selena was now at war both with His Majesty and with Ash Ketchum.

* * *

"Daddy! Are you really going 'way?" Corrin asked while jumping around in his chair. Like most four-year-olds, it was as if Corrin was on a constant sugar rush and he just couldn't quite sit still.

"I'm sorry kiddo," Leeroy Jenkins said as he rubbed the boy on his head. "But sometimes Daddy needs to go and do things away from home." He looked towards his short statured redhead wife who looked on the verge of tears.

"Come back safe," was all that she could manage.

"Don't worry, I'm not leaving right now," Jenkins said. "We have to figure out a few things first, but I might not get time to come home again so I just wanted to see you. And you'll always have your mother here to take care of you."

It was only thanks to Jenkin's high rank that he had managed to prevent his wife from being drafted along with him. Most of the families in Constantinople had everyone over the age of eighteen being conscripted for the imminent war, except for a few that were needed to guard the territory from potential invasion from Ash Ketchum, or, far less likely, if His Majesty found the courage to strike them at their homeland.

"Now be a good boy, alright?" Jenkins said with a smile. "School's out for now so you can stay at home with Mummy all you want, and don't give her any trouble, okay?"

"How long will it take?" Lilith asked, but she knew the answer already from her husband's face.

"I can never tell, but if all goes well we should be done within a couple of weeks and even then it might be a bit longer before I can return," Jenkins said.

"Couldn't they send someone else?" Lilith asked. She had stopped trying to hold back a flood of emotions and solitary tears began trickling down her cheeks. "I mean- you're here second-in-command, surely they would leave you here? They need someone to look after the city!"

Jenkins took his wife by the shoulders. "Dear, I'm her right hand. That's why I just have to go. I have to oversee her plans and make sure that she wins. Think about all that we've gotten thanks to my position- this house, money, and everything else that we could ask for. We- I, need to give back to her for that. And don't be so upset, we'll probably be back home safely, and it isn't as if I will be fighting in the front line."

Lilith was crying even more now. Corrin clearly looked upset too now- and he was far too young to understand what was happening.

"Come on, be strong, for our son," Jenkins said. "Don't worry about anything else, I've arranged for us to have enough food stored for months and anyway I can always get someone to look after you. Marie- yes, she's staying just a few blocks away and she'll be part of the city's defense, I can have her check up on you in case you need anything."

Even Corrin was tearing up, but Lilith seemed to have pulled herself together. She scooped up her son in her arms and said, "Say bye to Daddy!"

"Bye!" Corrin said.

Jenkins smiled and kissed each of them on the forehead before he set off outside and saw that his driver was waiting for him.

Truth be told, he was feeling far more nervous than he had let on. But he knew he had to keep strong, despite his doubts regarding what was happening.

He knew that it wasn't just his family who were suffering. Far from it- the city would be filled with spouses and children who couldn't sleep properly tonight.

Jenkins had never noticed it before, but the absence of Constantinople's three walls was rather conspicuous as the car skirted near what used to be the boundary of the city. Constantinople's three walls had been iconic- they were strongly associated with the city's history and millennia of citizens trying to keep the barbarians and invaders alike outside the walls. They had been torn down only five years ago to give the city room to expand.

Jenkins had assumed that peace would be eternal and so the walls would be unnecessary, but now he sorely wanted them back. Sure, they were not of much use given that they could torn down with a Gym Badge but they certainly made many feel safer, not to mention they could keep common soldiers out.

Jenkins buried his face in his hands as they approached HQ.

He knew why everyone in the city was feeling dour. Truth be told, they had all been spoiled. The citizens of Constantinople had lived in luxury for too long, and now they had been called to war. The people of Galea who had lived comfortably for most of their lives and were probably the most used to comfort were now going to be part of a huge invasion.

What really scared him was not His Majesty, he was sure that Selena would take him out. No, he was scared that Ash, Wade, or another one of the foreigner's minions would come and invade Constantinople behind their backs. The boy hadn't done much to harass civilians, but anything could happen when war broke out, and his family would certainly be targets kudos to his status.

He even contemplated bringing Lilith and Corrin along with him- perhaps they would be safer while on the fleet where at least they would be surrounded by military personnel, but then discarded the idea. He fidgeted in his seat- there was no guarantee they wouldn't be caught in the crossfire on the fleet, but there was also no certainty they'd be safe back home…

His mind laden heavy with these thoughts, he climbed the stairs to where Selena would be awaiting him.

 **A/N: And that ends another chapter. Thanks for reading, but we'll be on hiatus for a while as I'm getting busy now. Thanks for understanding.**


	58. VS Selena IV

**A/N: We're finally back! Thanks for all the patience guys.**

Jenkins had to say that he was pretty relieved on seeing Selena. As in, he had been expecting her condition to deteriorate and expected to see someone who hadn't showered in three days, had those 'crazy red eyes' and would talk only in incomplete sentences.

Instead, Selena was wearing an old traditional outfit used by the old gym leaders of Constantinople when they were about to declare war (okay, this part was slightly weird given that it had fallen out of fashion around five hundred years ago… but it wasn't _that_ strange) and was clearly well-groomed and when she saw him, said in a nice, level tone, "Nice to see that you finally decided to show up."

"Forgive me, Milady, I was delayed a bit," Jenkins said. Despite her flat tone, Jenkins had enough experience working with her to recognize that this wasn't a good day for her. She seemed to have been sleeping better though as the dark circles around her eyes were lighter today. "Err… what has happened?"

"I had a talk with the boy," Selena said. "Apparently he has decided to not hand the Badges over to me. He isn't going to make this easy."

"I don't understand," Jenkins said. "Didn't the child say that he only wanted to return to his homeland? We can make that happen-"

"Are you so naïve?" Selena interjected. "Do you think that he would be ready to just hand over and lose so much power?"

"I suppose not," Jenkins said.

Selena sighed. "And with that we have a new problem on our hands- what to do regarding the boy. He is not a true threat- he poses no challenge to me during a battle. But he does have six Badges with him. We need to secure our backs before we set off for His Majesty. Which is why I want to divide our forces and send half of them to invade his territory to keep him busy."

Jenkins blinked. "Divide half of our forces?" He tried to not sound too shocked- he thought it was dangerous to irritate Selena any further after that whole psychiatrist deal. "Milady, His Majesty's forces may be smaller compared to ours but they are not nonexistent, and they will be fighting on their own ground. Would it really be wise to split our power in half?"

"His Majesty is weak," Selena spat out. "He is nothing but a speed block on my path to power. As long as I can defeat him in a Pokemon battle, it won't matter. And I have enough trained soldiers to set his territory ablaze… he'll be forced to challenge me in order to stop the carnage we will inflict on them. And even if he does not, well, I am still more than a match for him even if I have to play by his special rule."

"But Milady," Jenkins said, "for now, the boy doesn't have any reason to attack us. But if we send a large force into his territory, he'll choose to attack us just to retaliate. And he has six Badges with him in total, and the only one that we have will be gone in a struggle against His Majesty. Not to mention that the soldiers we have are strong, but not nearly enough to defeat either Wade or the boy. They'll be killed…"

"He will attack me no matter what I do," Selena said. "That is a foregone conclusion. He is convinced of the righteousness of his cause to such an extent that he will not be content to just sit there and wait for what I do. He could be moving towards Constantinople as we speak." Selena then leaned forward and asked for a map of Galea to be brought before her and began examining it. "But there is one thing that I have learned about the boy is that he seems to care about his subjects." She then traced her finger around the ocean that surrounded most of the continent of Galea and which separated it from the island to the north. "As such, we can send a tenth of our force to go and delay Wade- they will each challenge him to a Gym Battle. I doubt that any of them can win, but they will delay him for a while during which time the others will make their way all around Galea on their ships. They shall then disembark and begin sowing seeds of terror all around- the boy will not know what hit him or where he has to be… he cannot be everywhere all at once and our agents can simply retreat when they know that he is coming."

"Milady, but those soldiers that will fight Wade or who might be forced to fight the boy… they'll die," Jenkins said. "We can't send so many people as cannon fodder."

Selena shrugged. "I highly doubt that they will be _killed_. The boy has not even ended the lives of any of those idiots- and here I was hoping that he would at least have beheaded Freyja… now that would have been a bright spot on an otherwise bleak few weeks."

"Wade will have no reservations regarding that," Jenkins said.

Again, Selena shrugged. "Most probably the boy has asked Wade to also spare the lives of those who will fight against him, but then again… well yes, some people may die, but I suppose that is a sacrifice that I am willing to make. Anyway, what is a war if you do not lose a few soldiers?"

Jenkins had no answer to that… or at least nothing that wouldn't see him executed. He was very glad he had gotten his wife out of being drafted. He just nodded. "But Milady, are forces would be spread thin if we tried attacking everywhere all at once."

"They do not need to be strong," Selena said. "Those fools- Marley, Thomdolt, Freyja, Vanessa, and even Linnea apparently followed my suggestion to the letter when I said that they should restrict the training of Pokemon in their territories so that their positions would be safe. Oh, it made them safe for the time being of course but they forgot to keep their skills sharp and look what happened to them. Most of the continent, unlike Constantinople has no real Pokemon Trainers and with our Pokemon even a small number of soldiers would easily overcome them," Selena said.

Jenkins stared at the map for a few minutes before he said, "What if the boy chooses to invade Constantinople while we are away? He may conclude that it would be the only viable possibility if we overwhelm him with our numbers and attack him everywhere."

"Highly unlikely, he would want to defend his land. But even if he does, I do not see the problem. He did not harm the residents of any place he invaded before, and even if he does, what of it?" Selena asked.

"People change," Jenkins said. "And if Wade or someone else entrusted to attack us, well then, it would be a whole different story. They could burn Constantinople to the ground- and all the progress that we've made all these years would be lost."

Selena shrugged. "I do not care. I think you might, Mr. Jenkins, but I can always rebuild Constantinople when I am sure that all of Galea is once again in my sway. I can always repopulate it. Those things aren't difficult at all to accomplish."

Jenkins tried hard to not think about all of Constantinople being razed and its people slaughtered- with his family among them. He had to think of something… some way to convince Selena not to leave the city defenseless.

"Milady, if you don't mind, I do have an alternative suggestions," Jenkins said. Selena didn't say anything, so Jenkins continued. "Why do we simply not first attack the boy? You could take his Badges with ease and then with the rest of Galea under our sway we could attack His Majesty when we feel ready. His Majesty is unlikely to attack us while we would be away- he will be far to busy trying to ready his defenses."

"It would take too much time," Selena said.

"I assure you, Milady, that with our full force and scouts operating we could find him with ease- the whole thing could be finished in under three days if you simply would give the command. We would then have our backs safe and it would only be a matter of time before you finish off His Majesty," Jenkins said.

A strange expression fell over Selena's face. "That is possible…" she said in an odd voice. She blinked as if she had just woken up. "Why did I not think of it then…?" she trailed off.

It was then that the weirdest thing happened to Jenkins.

First of all, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped and he felt a chill. Sure, the air conditioning was on, but the room seemed to become even colder, as if he was standing in a walk-in refrigerator.

But that wasn't the oddest thing. No, what was weird was the sudden feeling that he was being watched, as if there was someone else in the room. Sure, Selena and her other attendants were in the room, but right then he felt that there was someone… or something else in the room with them.

Jenkins grabbed a chair and sat down… he was feeling nauseous now and wasn't sure that he could stand on his feet. He felt his mouth completely dry up and something deep down, something extremely primal within him seemed to urge him to run away from the place as fast as possible.

Despite the cool temperature, sweat beaded his face and his hands felt cold and clammy. What in Arceus' name was going on?

He looked around- the other people seemed to have noticed the cold surge but were otherwise unaffected and were carrying out their duties as if nothing at all had happened.

Selena still seemed to be lost in some sort of dream and Jenkins caught her nodding now and then as if someone was whispering something in her ear and she was agreeing with whoever- or whateverr it was.

But Jenkins knew for a fact that Selena wasn't wearing an earpiece.

Jenkins considered himself to be a man of science. He had assumed the same for most of Constantinople- the masses had long since risen above petty superstition.

But even he, during that moment, a man who never paid more than lip service to the cults that worshiped Arceus found himself praying. There was just something… well, _unnatural_ about the whole thing.

Was this how Selena was feeling all the time? Did this mean that he was going insane too?

But it doesn't work like that, he reasoned. Insanity wasn't a transmissible disease… though he had heard of a few villages in Linnea's domain getting ill due to some fungus and mass hysteria being spread everywhere. But the Badge would've protected Selena. And she didn't like mushrooms anyway, nobody likes mushrooms after all-

"We cannot wait," Selena finally said while looking as if she had come out of some deep trance, interrupting Jenkins' thought process.

Jenkins found his voice hoarse and difficult to speak. "Didn't you feel it, Milady?"

"Feel what?" Selena asked.

"The-I-it was cold and we- you, uh," Jenkins said, not sure how to describe his experience.

"I do not have time for you to lose your head," Selena snapped. "I have waited far too long to see His Majesty toppled. I am not about to lose even further time by trying to get at the boy first."

"Milady, you've spent thirty-two years attempting to topple His Majesty," Jenkins said. "What difference is a few days? Or a week at most?"

Selena frowned again. "Yes, that is true but…"

Jenkins felt a cold sensation in his gut and his tongue seemed to shrivel up and he found it suddenly difficult to breathe as if he was being gagged. The feeling was fleeting but enough to make him realized that it maybe it wasn't that Selena was sick… was there actually something, or someone that was doing this?

"But I do not wish to wait another second," Selena said finally. "Yes, I have to defeat His Majesty. I have to do it as soon as possible. Only then will I be able to sleep… and finally be able to rest…" She trailed off, whispering things in a low tone that Jenkins couldn't hear.

Jenkins wiped the sweat off his brow. Now, this wasn't good. This was the sort of thing that he had been afraid of, but whatever it was that was happening to Selena was quickly shaken off.

"I have made my decision final. We will send half of the fleet to attack the boy, and the rest of the half will move towards His Majesty," Selena said.

Jenkins sighed- at this point he knew better than to argue. He could only hope that things would all turn out alright in the end.

* * *

The sun was still stuck motionless in the sky as it had been for several days even though it was currently near sunset right now.

Jenkins surveyed the vast fleet surrounding him one last time. The basic unit was a modern day steel ship with a few being capable of functioning as submarines also. The ships were built for about eighty people each and there were over two thousand of them scattered in the waves.

He had learned later on in the day that Brennus, a colleague that he personally disliked had now been made Selena's left-hand-man. It was a position that he didn't envy given that Brennus would be leading the assault on the boy while he and Selena would move forwards to engage His Majesty.

They had left the shores of Constantinople half an hour ago. Thousands of people who were left in the city had swarmed near the harbor in order to see them off, and Jenkins had had a last tearful goodbye with his family.

The harbor was but a small line on the horizon now, and the island to the north of Galea would soon be visible.

Selena, who was aboard a different ship named the _Lady Mallory_ had sent the signal for half of the fleet to separate and go towards Wade's domain and to sow havoc on the rest of the continent.

As the island fast approached, several things ran through Jenkins' head, not the least of which was that he had learned that apparently Selena had been working on some top-secret weapon or something else of the sort which even he hadn't been privy to, and it was currently being carried on the _Lady Mallory_.

He had his own problems of course- namely that several of the artillery pieces that they had commissioned from Thomdolt weren't working anymore, which of course made Selena livid and had her cursing the man for several hours.

It was while he was appraising one of them that he felt the boat he was on suddenly lurch towards one side.


	59. VS Selena V

**A/N: Thanks for the review Julie Togepi. For now though we're going to go to see what's happening with Ash, and that's kind of going to be a thing throughout this arc with us skipping viewpoints so just bear with me on that.**

Ash groaned. Problems were just piling up one after the other. For one, Selena had decided to cut down all communication lines that she had established in the territory that he controlled and so the monumental task of trying to control everything was now made even worse by the fact that now they had to rely on methods of mail delivery which included Pidgey services instead of a simple phone call.

Ash had discovered this all a bit too late though, as he had wanted to speak to one of the researchers who studied the Barrier. Selena had told him that it was possible to go back to Kanto, but he wanted to hear it from someone on his side.

Only problem was that he had relocated himself along with his friends and Pokemon to Linnea's earlier capital and now they had to find an expert and then bring him back and long story short it was taking too long for Ash's liking, though given that he was only ten years old it didn't take a very long time for him to get bored.

"We've been waiting _forever_ ," Ash said. More accurately, it had been three hours.

"Pika pii," Pikachu said.

Brock yawned. "You should go and get some sleep Ash." Both Misty and Gulliver were resting- all of them had moved non-stop towards the place to reach it as quickly as possible.

"I can't sleep," Ash admitted. Every time that he was left alone, his mind would invariably wander off towards what he had to do about Galea. Ash had felt overwhelmed regarding his responsibilities before- but back then he had help from people like Mr. Jennings who were experienced regarding what needed to be done. Right now though, no one knew what was going to happen.

"Ash, you're going to need some rest," Brock said. "See? Even your Pokemon've dozed off. The scientists aren't going to get here for some time, and everything seems to be alright for now. You never know when you'll have a stressful day again if things get bad."

"Yeah," Ash said, but didn't make any motion to actually go to sleep.

Brock opened his mouth but found himself lost for words.

It had been quite a long time since Brock, Misty, and Ash had separated. It was probably even longer for Ash given that there seemed to be some sort of time lag between Galea and the rest of the world. But that wasn't enough to account for the rift that seemed to exist between them now- both Brock and Misty could tell that Ash had changed a lot. Sure, he still talked to them and joked around with them like old times, but at the same time it felt as if he was never really there _with_ them.

For that matter, Ash didn't seem to be open with anyone anymore. Not even Gulliver- but from what Brock could tell Gulliver seemed to think that it was normal, but Misty and Brock knew that that wasn't how Ash was. As a matter of fact, Brock doubted that even Ash was able to see how different he was acting and the kind of rift that had opened up between the three of them.

Brock couldn't think of anything to say though no matter how much he thought about getting Ash to just talk normally again.

Brock rubbed his forehead- he was getting tired. Maybe he'd try to talk to Ash when they were both rested- so he left.

Ash on the other hand spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling. He could feel Pikachu's breathing become slower and rhythmic besides him- but he couldn't fall asleep. Not, at least, for several hours before he finally dozed off, right there on the floor.

* * *

The commander of the coast guard at Linnea's former capital Ponyta City, was busy ticking off some paperwork as he sipped some tea. It wasn't much more than a usual boring day at this point- despite with what seemed like an apocalypse looming over all of Galea. He wasn't one to sit around and worry when he knew that there was nothing that he could do.

It was as he was writing through that someone burst into the door.

The commander spilled his tea all over his document, cursing as it now meant that he would have to redo everything once again.

"What happened?" the commander hissed, boiling with rage. He glared at the intruder- a cadet whose name he didn't even know who was sweating profusely and heaving.

"Sir, you have issued orders stating that in event of any complication we are to-"

"I know my own orders fool! There's no need to repeat them to me!" the commander snarled. "Just who are you? Are you new here?"

"Sir, there are two huge ships- we don't know who made them approaching the harbor rapidly," the cadet said, ignoring the question, which probably meant that he was.

"Our communications are all down," the commander said. "Probably some vessels that-"

"Sir, there's something wrong with these vessels," the cadet said. "They're larger than any commercial crafts- and there are Pokemon spotted flying over them- Pokemon like Charizard and Altaria…"

Now that gave the commander pause. "Pokemon like that?"

"We think that the ship is Selena's, sir," the cadet added. "We me-"

The cadet didn't get any further as he was knocked aside as the commander left his office and took the five minute walk towards the shore where he could see the two ships. They looked like huge black Waillords on the horizon and there were specks no larger than coins flitting above them.

The shipworkers and merchants were beginning to notice too.

A runner came up to him. "Just giving classified information sir, that Lord Ash Ketchum has come to Ponyta City. He doesn't want any panic so he has mainly snuck in quietly but the commanders of the important garrisons are being informed."

"Is that all?" the commander asked. The news was pretty big- there would be talk all over Ponyta City if it was known publicly that he was here, but for the commander it meant that there was a possibility that he may have overlooked.

"Yes," the runner said.

"Well, carry a message back and say that there are two unknown ships rapidly approaching the harbor," the commander said. "I need confirmation regarding whether or not Lord Ketchum has sent them himself or they really are unknown ships."

The commander then called every single member on duty and started giving out orders, "Well lads, we have two unknown ships fast approaching the shore. Now, I don't want any alarm, and it remains the possibility that this is actually one of our ships and information regarding it has just been due to the current chaos that has messed up our communication networks."

"And in case it is hostile, what do we do sir?" one of them asked him.

The commander sighed. He knew what every single other one of them did- that there was bloody little that they could do if this turned out to be a threat. A Charizard and Altaria were both high-level Pokemon and Linnea had not seen fit to give any of them Pokemon- a decision that had not been reversed swiftly by Lord Ash's rule.

"First we should send a motorboat with a messenger and confirm who's on that ship and if they're ours- Duke Hamnet is known to have an Altaria," the commander said, not mentioning that Duke Hamnet was as far as he knew, to the south of Galea.

"Should we evacuate the coastline just in case?" another one them piped up.

The commander was divided on that front. On the one hand he didn't want to casue panic for no reason, and on the other hand he was pretty much darn sure that there was a cause for panic. "For now just send a motorboat as a messenger."

One of his officers turned towards the ships and said, "I don't think that'll be necessary sir."

One of the flying Pokemon which had been hovering over the ship- but didn't dare go too far away from it had suddenly left it behind and was racing towards them. It was a Charizard- and the commander didn't know anyone within Galea who owned a Pokemon like that. He briefly considered that it might be Sir Ash's- but then he had already received word that Sir Ash was already within the city.

The commander found out that he needn't have worried so much as the Charizard was now directly over them.

"Who are you?" the commander called out, using his parade ground voice.

As a reply, the Charizard let out a torrent of red-hot flames at the harbor.

* * *

Life is full of irony. Take sleeping for example. On the days when you just know that you have to get up as early as possible you'll find that you've always overslept. On the other hand when you know that it's a day when you have no work to do and there's no reason for you to wake up before sunrise you'll find yourself waking up two hours earlier than usual.

In much the same vein, Ash Ketchum had found it extremely hard to fall asleep, and yet now that someone was trying to wake him up, he found it impossible to rouse himself. Sure, he was lying right there one the floor, but come on now, it was a comfy floor and he was just so sleepy…

But the thing is that whatever or whoever it was wasn't stopping. There was a loud noise coming from somewhere, but Ash just shrugged it off. He was sure that it wasn't very important.

But then just a few minutes later he started feeling very uncomfortable… he wiped something off of his face. It was sweat. He was sweating. Come to think of it, it was pretty hot for some reason. Come to think of it, the floor was now getting unbearably hot.

Now, as you can imagine, this was enough to get the drowsiest person out of his slumber, and then Ash hastily shook Pikachu awake, and after that sent out his Greninja and Arcanine. He inhaled- he could smell smoke now and that could only mean one thing. He rushed out of his room to see a hallway that was being consumed by flames.

"Greninja! Take out the fire!" Ash said.

Greninja used Water Shuriken- and when he did, Ash felt a familiar sensation in his gut- as he was seeing the world through Greninja's eyes instead of his own. It was a welcome feeling- but Greninja didn't exactly transform and the sensation was gone pretty fast. It would take some time, Ash realized, before he and his Greninja could get back in sync enough to cause it to transform into Ash-Greninja.

But Ash didn't worry about that for too long- his first priority was to find Brock and Misty. Wherever he went though, he saw frightened servants and so he found himself delayed as he helped establish a path to get them to safety.

He had regretted having too many Badges many times before- but never as much as this current time. Their power would have been extremely useful in getting rid of the conflagration.

His search was made even more difficult by the fact that he didn't know where the two of them were.

"Sir Ketchum!" a familiar voice said and Ash turned around to see Gulliver who was trying to douse the flames with the help of is Psyduck. Only thing was that Psyduck could only keep up a weak stream of water and so it wasn't much of help.

"Where're Brock and Misty?" Ash asked. "And why's everything burning?"

"There was a Pokemon," Gulliver said. "We're under attack- but I don't know all the details. I wouldn't worry 'bout Brock an' Misty though, they look like they can take care o' themselves."

"Yeah," Ash said- it was true that with Rock and Water type Pokemon, Brock and Misty were unlikely to run into any kind of trouble. But he was worried about them nonetheless.

"But it ain't safe to stay here," Gulliver said. "There's too much smoke- let's get into the gardens or somewhere."

With most of the exits blocked, they decided to take a direct route through a window which landed them into a small enclave about the size of a house which was filled with tulips.

And then they heard an ear-splitting roar from above.

"What was that?" Gulliver asked.

"I think I know," Ash said. Oh, he had heard that kind of roar many, many times before. But he had usually been elated when he heard it- not filled with dread as he was now.

Ash withdrew his Pokemon and sent out his Fearow. "Gulliver, uh, on second thought come one and let's go see what this is together."

Gulliver got on after putting his Psyduck back in its Poke Ball and then Ash felt a rush of air past his ears as they left the ground and hovered above the Imperial Palace- which was still half in flames and the screams of trapped people reached them even at that height.

Ash was torn between saving whoever was down there and between facing the threat- a large Charizard with someone he didn't recognize riding it. He sent out his Greninja and Arcanine again and told them to save whoever they could, and with his Pikachu they approached the Charizard which was still adding to the sea of flames below them.

"Hey!" Ash shouted. They were close enough to see that the rider was a purple-haired woman wearing a white lab coat. "Who are you? Where're you from?"

The woman turned towards Ash, surprised. "What's a child doing up here?"

Ash didn't ask any more questions- the Charizard wasn't ceasing its barrage of flames and he had lost all of his patience. "Pikachu! Thunderbotl!"

Pikachu leaped up from the Fearow and unleashed a high-voltage current that was strong enough to send the Charizard teetering back towards the ground- or in this case through the wooden roof of the Imperial Palace. The rider seemed to be mostly uninjured, but the Charizard glared at Ash and prepared to take flight again when something burst from under the ground and wrapped itself around it- an Onix!

After that, the Charizard was hit with a Water Gun from a Starmie.

Brock and Misty popped up soon enough after and Ash swooped down to meet them. The Charizard, for now, was totally immobilized by Onix's Bind. The rider was also squeezed but was trying to take out what looked like a Walkie-Talkie and pressed a button on it to say, "Everyone run-"

She didn't get further as Brock snatched it away from her. Starmie and Geodude were busy putting out the fire elsewhere. "Who are you?"

Ash held up on of his Badges. Sure, he was hesitant to use them… but it wasn't like everyone else knew that.

The rider seemed to realize who she was dealing with and stopped struggling. "It's… you? But you were back in Platina City still…"

"Yeah well, spying only works as long as we didn't go and destroy all our machinery," Misty said. It was only now that Ash noticed that she had a large burn on her left arm and was holding it tenderly.

"Well, it doesn't matter, I suppose?" the rider said. "I'm merely following Lady Selena's orders."

"Why attack me though? I thought she was going after His Majesty," Ash said. "And does that mean that she's here too?"

"We're just here to keep you busy, child," the rider said. "Kill me if you want to- I was prepared for it the moment I left. But Lady Selena will get you in the end boy."

Ash got on his Fearow again and soared higher this time- high enough to notice that it wasn't just the Imperial Palace- but the whole city that was currently being ransacked. He touched down lightly.

"Give me the Walkie-Talkie," Ash barked to Misty. Inwardly he flinched- he wouldn't normally have talked to one of his friends like that, but this was an emergency so he quashed his guilt for the time being. But he made a mental note that he couldn't keep this up or else he'd probably end up like the other Gym Leaders.

Misty seemed confused and hurt by Ash's tone but didn't say anything else as Ash took the device in his hands and pushed the red button to say, "Listen up! This is Ash Ketchum here and I've already knocked down one of your Pokemon! All of you better get out of Ponyta City before I start getting really mad and throw you out!"

The rider then turned to Ash and looked bored. "Thanks for telling us your position genius. Now all of our forces will know where you really are and will hit the rest of your domain. There's no way you can win against us- we will strike where you're weak and flee where you're strong. My comrades will be hightailing it out of this city and going somewhere else now."

Ash clenched his fists. Never before di he feel like hitting someone so badly. He knew that it wouldn't help at all but boy would it feel good to just beat the pulp out of this idiot- he might even have her tortured just for the sake of it or-

Ash snapped out of it as he saw his Pikachu stare at him oddly.

"Okay, I think this means that we'll have to go ahead with my plan a bit earlier than I would've liked," Ash said as he thought of various tactics for getting rid of the huge numbers of invaders that were storming over his territory at the moment- but all of them were dependent on him either somehow learning how to teleport or having a lot more Trainers at his disposal than he really did. But then he realized that the original plan he had had would be good enough if modified for this sort of situation.

"What plan?" Brock asked.

"Let's go fix up the city first, and then we'll find the scientist guy I wanted to talk to," Ash said.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading.**


	60. VS Selena VI

**A/N: Thanks for everyone for reviewing and for waiting so long for me to get back to all you guys. And we managed to hit 100 reviews! *Throws confetti* And even better, this is our 60th chapter, so we've come a long way up till now. Thanks for the support.**

Ash had thought that the invaders had headed straight for the Imperial Palace, and as such, most of the damage had been done to the Imperial Palace and the surrounding city would have been spared. He had seen the damage done to the streets outside but it had been but a glimpse and not enough to prepare him for what he now saw on the ground firsthand.

The streets of Ponyta City were a mess.

"Half the city looks like it's collapsed," Ash said.

"Actually, we've done a quick survey and it's closer to 'round forty percent," Gulliver said.

"That really doesn't help," Ash said. Pikachu nodded. They had decided to break into teams with Misty and Brock staying back at the Palace and fixing everything that was there while Ash and Gulliver tried fixing things outside.

There were hundreds of injured people… and many more that were unharmed but very scared. Lots of them began to crowd around Ash and Gulliver as they made their way towards the docks. Most of them were asking what was going on and Ash and Gulliver tried their best to tell them that the threat was gone.

At least, it was gone for the most part. Ash and Gulliver ran into random stragglers from the invading army- people who either for some reason didn't believe what Ash had said or maybe had faulty communications devices and hadn't boarded the large ships to leave.

"So what do we do with all of them now?" Ash asked, dragging a fourth one who had been shocked unconscious towards a large pile.

"I dunno," Gulliver said.

"I was thinking of maybe just handing them over to, well you know, the normal people here but they'd probably kill them," Ash said. The sentence had sounded strange in his mouth… for one it was weird to refer to anyone as 'normal people' and on the other hand it was also odd that he had immediately come to the conclusion that the citizens of Ponyta City, if left to guard these soldiers, would kill them. But he had been in Galea long enough to realize that it wasn't all too remote a possibility.

"Well then I don't see any officers 'round here, but we- y' know what, I'll go round up some more fellas to keep these prisoners well, uh, captured," Gulliver said.

"Seems like a good idea," Ash said.

And it was then that Ash heard the scream. It was a loud, ear-piercing shriek coupled with sobs that emanated from a nearby collapsed store.

Ash walked over there to see what the whole deal was.

Right there, under the rubble, was the malformed structure of what was once a person with an older woman- a mother or wife perhaps- sobbing next to it.

At that moment, Ash didn't know what hit him. He didn't know- but he sure felt it. He felt a torrential wave of anger rush inside of him. There was a roaring sound in his ears and up till that moment, he had made sure to try as hard as possible not to rely on the Badge's powers up till now but he found himself reaching deep into them.

As the energy from them filled him, he felt it expand and push against his head along with his anger until it felt like his head would explode, and then within seconds he felt himself leave his body.

Now, out-of-body experiences were nothing new to Ash Ketchum. There was that time when he had wanted to defeat Sabrina and Haunter had taken his soul out when he had tried to catch a ghost type. But that time they had still floated around at what were normal speeds.

This time, it felt like he zoomed over the entire city in the blink of an eye and yet somehow within that short span of time managed to see everything… the people milling about, the stores that were still open, and that there were far, far, more people dead than he had thought.

But that was a temporary consideration as he found the mammoth ships that were carrying the people who had done this, and he unleashed his fury one them by raining lightning bolts on the hull of the ship. Some primal part deep within him actually wanted to finish the job and kill all of them, but some other part of him knew that was a bad idea.

"Ash!" a familiar voice- Gulliver's called out to him.

Next thing that Ash knew, he was lying on the floor. There was something dripping out of his nose which he wiped- it was blood. His chest felt like there were six burning holes in it and he could hardly see clearly.

His Pikachu was looking at him, worried.

But somehow, Ash's anger still hadn't subsided. He got up and snarled, "We need to go after them! We'll get them, every single one of them who did this!"

"Are- are you sure?" Gulliver asked. "I mean ain't it more important to take care of whoever's left 'round? Some of them could use medic help."

For the first time, Ash actually wished that Gulliver would start acting like one of his servants instead of trying to be his friend, ironically just when Gulliver had started doing the opposite only because Ash had kept telling him to do so.

"This'll just happen again," Ash said. "It'll happen to even more people. And I can't let that happen." He didn't want to stand around tending to people's wounds or comforting them right now, no, he wanted to go and plant his feet firmly in the behinds of the people that had done this.

"But we can't catch 'em all," Gulliver said. "They'll run away. It'll be impossible."

Gradually, Ash's anger abated and he was aware that he had been thinking like a huge jerk and that Gulliver was right.

At that moment though, a shadow passed over them and there was the cry of a Pokemon. A cry he recognized… an Altaria!

Ash whipped his head upwards, expecting a battle but instead saw that it was Duke Hamnet, rapidly descending towards them.

"Sir Ash," Duke Hamnet said and made a low bow. "Our towns… all of them are being assaulted as we speak. I was able to hold Cinnamon City for a few hours before I was able to get everyone evacuated. I have taken the imprisoned Gym Leaders and relocated them to a safe location where they will not be targets. What are your further orders?"

"Oh, great to see you," Ash said, really feeling relieved that help had arrived. "Uh, see, I think I already broke one of Selena's ships, and I think that you and Gulliver should go and take down the other one. We can't have them spreading from here to another place."

"Yes, sir," Duke Hamnet said.

Ash handed Gulliver his Fearow and Arcanine in case it would be needed- Gulliver wasn't that good of a battler yet but he was sure that the two of them could take on a large number of Selena's minions. From what he had seen, sure, they were tougher than other Trainers in Galea, but that was a very low threshold to be honest and they wouldn't be of much threat to them.

Ash sent out his Roserade- Aromatherapy would be useful in healing people especially as Ash wasn't sure about using the Badges right now.

* * *

By the time the sun was about to set (the sun had begun moving through the sky normally suddenly), their work was basically over. Ash felt like he could fall over- and even his Roserade was tired.

The scientist they had been looking for had thankfully arrived so Ash didn't have to go looking for him and he was being escorted by another familiar face- Celera who had helped fight off some of the other ravagers that had attacked them.

All of them- Ash, Gulliver, Brock, Misty, Celera, and Duke Hamnet were seated in Ash's room in the Imperial Palace. The telephones had been dismantled so that Selena would no longer be able to spy on them through them- which was probably why her soldiers had thought that Ash was still back in Vanessa's domain.

"I have grim news, Lord Ash," Celera said. "Their soldiers might be weak, but they vastly outnumber our own and they are stronger than those who have never fought a real Pokemon battle. Most of the people have fled the cities have migrated towards fortified locations, it doesn't help that most of the defensive walls around our cities have been torn down in the last thirty-two years- where many of them are building weapons to use against the enemy Pokemon. Selena's minions are taking prisoners but I do not know what she intends to do with them."

"Probably wants to use them hostage," Brock said.

Duke Hamnet said, "But why though? We wouldn't pay to get our peasants back. If they were nobles than perhaps I could understand but Selena has all the money that she needs."

Ash had difficulty wrapping his head around what Duke Hamnet was trying to say but when he did realize what he was saying he said, "I don't think she wants to ransom them for money- she wants to keep them hostage in case I ever attack her."

"Oh, yes," Duke Hamnet said.

"What about Wade?" Ash asked.

"I don't have any news from him," Celera said.

"Neither do I," Duke Hamnet said. "But my guessing would be that he is similarly trying to defend his domain against the invaders and is too overwhelmed to send a message to us."

"Right," Ash said. "So, on to why I brought all of you here. First of all, Dr. Stein," Ash said, addressing the scientist present at the scene, "Selena said that it would be possible for me to leave Galea by using the power of my Badges and go back to Kanto. Is that true? And if so, would it have any harmful side effects?"

"Well, see now that is a rather difficult question to answer," Dr. Stein said, stroking his white mustache. He kind of reminded Ash of Professor Oak, except that he was mostly bald and a bit shorter and fatter. "Well, you see, the intricacies of the balance between Galea and the outside world are precarious. We live in a delicate equilibrium maintained by the Barrier. Lady Selena has disrupted the Barrier and due to it we've seen all of these effects, but it seems that the Barrier has somewhat stabilized since then and the various strange occurrences like Pokemon suddenly appearing out of nowhere and ships vanishing have stopped."

"So do you mean that the Barrier's fine again?" Ash asked. "I thought Selena said it was collapsing…"

"It is," Dr. Stein said. "The Barrier's self-regenerating capacity is still present but we have crossed the point of no return a long time ago- without any intervention it will come crashing down upon us. But it has managed to stabilize itself in its present condition. As such, if we imaging the Barrier in likeness to a large wall, there are probably enough holes for one such as yourself to slip through without any problem any more."

"Right," Ash said.

"You're leaving for Kanto?" Gulliver asked. He, as well as Duke Hamnet and Celera, had alarmed expressions on their faces. Brock and Misty were also surprised, but the three of them looked downright scared.

"I'm not leaving forever," Ash said. "I'm leaving to get help. And this is where my plan begins." He turned to Brock and Misty. "I remember a lot of my journeys with you guys, and not just with you, with Iris, with Serena and all the others too. I've been to so many places and I've realized one thing- I've met so many people around the world. I know Elite Four members like Agatha, Drake, and Lance as well as all the Gym Leaders. And that's important because there's no way- no way at all that we can combat Selena with what we have. And the thing is that I've helped those people. And if I go outside and tell them what's happening in Galea- they're bound to listen. I'll take the Badges as proof and Clemont and Professor Sycamore will back me up. And with that, I'll get the Pokemon League of every region to send Trainers towards Galea, and with all of their help we'll defeat the invaders."

There was a long silence after Ash had finished. Ash began to sweat nervously- this wasn't the reaction he was waiting for.

"Ash, what makes you think that they'll believe you?" Misty asked. "I mean, yeah, there are people like Cynthia and Lance who'll take your word for it. But Professor Oak didn't exactly think that Professor Sycamore was sane when he sent us to Clemont's lab."

"But I'll be there," Ash said. "They can't explain the fact that I've been missing for so long any other way. Not to mention all of the signs like those Darumaka appearing- that means that they must have come from the outside world. And they have better stuff outside their too so something must show up once we go outside. Plus, there are the Badges."

"If I may interject," Celera said nervously, "But Ash, we aren't sure if the Badges will work outside of Galea or even if they'll want to leave Galea. If I'm not wrong, didn't you feel weird when you tried to take a Badge from one place to another?"

"Yeah, okay, ignoring them, they'll still believe me," Ash said. "There must be way too much of a ruckus for them to ignore what I'm trying to tell them."

"Are you certain that they'd want to help us anyway?" Duke Hamnet asked. "We did attack Kalos several millennia ago, what if they're still enraged about that and decide to launch an invasion? Not to mention that the people need to know that their leader stands with them, Sir Ketchum. You leaving would be seen as something like someone jumping off a sinking ship. It would not be good for morale."

"Okay, look, no one is going to try and invade Galea," Ash said. "We've progressed far beyond the point where we'd go and try to retaliate against another country just because of something that happened a few thousand years ago. And from what I can tell, if Galea collapses, it'll effect everyone across the entire planet, and so they'll have to help. Plus, come on guys," Ash said particularly to Brock and Misty, "just think about Lance, about Steven and Drake, or about Cynthia, okay you guys never saw her but all of them do know me pretty well. D'ya really think that they'd all just stand by? If even half of the people we visited decide to do something about it, we could completely turn the tide of this war right here."

"I dunno who those people are," Gulliver said. "But if they're really strong an' all, won't they might try to take your Badges?"

Ash shrugged. "My main thing's always been to get out of Galea, and now it's also to save Galea and everyone in it. I don't think there are many people who are capable of beating me- since I'll be able to use all eight of my special rules against them. And even if someone like Lance does beat me, well, he's the Pokemon League Champion of Kanto already so I don't see why'd he want to come to Galea and I'm sure that if he does, he'd be a pretty nice ruler anyway."

"The Pokemon League Champion of Kanto?" Celera asked. Duke Hamnet, Gulliver, and Celera seemed to have become even more alarmed when Ash mentioned that.

"Yeah, and of Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Kalos also I guess," Ash said. "They'd all certainly come here I guess. And if I can't beat Selena for whatever reason, I'm sure that one of them will be able to. And with their help, we'll be able to protect all this territory that we have."

"Sir Ash, I have to say that this sounds less like asking for help and more closer to… annexation," Duke Hamnet said.

Ash rubbed his face in frustration. The urge to shout at everyone and tell them that it was he that was in charge and that it was going to be his final decision and they should all shut their stupid mouths was really swelling up in him… till he repressed it and realized that there was a reason that Celera, Duke Hamnet, and Gulliver were so vehemently opposed to his idea.

They don't like foreigners, Ash realized. They were scared of what it would mean to suddenly have all of those people from outside banging at their front door.

"Look, I know all of you are afraid of what's going to happen," Ash said. "But I'll be supervising everything and I'll make sure that nothing uh, bad happens. "

"Ash, there's another thing," Brock said. "Even if they want to come to Galea, what makes you think that they'll be able to?"

"I'll get them in," Ash said. "And even if I can't they'll find a way in."

"This seems to be hinged on a lot of 'ifs' happening," Misty said.

And now, the urge to scream at them had overpowered everything else. "Look guys, I know that it sounds odd, but trust me when I say that I know what I'm doing. And that's that," Ash said rather rudely. He then calmed down a bit as there was an odd silence as no one besides him dared to speak and he said, "Gulliver, I've decided that if I'm going, someone needs to take one of my Badges to keep order here. We can't rely on only Wade. So I'm handing the Tempo Badge to you."

"Really?" Gulliver asked, looking shocked.

"Don't look so surprised," Ash said. "Back then, back when I saw the person who had died... you still wanted to help people while I just wanted to burn everything down. I think that now, more than ever, you're ready to handle one of them. Brock, Misty, I'm sorry, but I could I ask the two of you to stay behind? Both of you are great Trainers and could really help in defending the place. I know it's selfish and you two probably wanna go back home to-" Ash got no further as both Brock and Misty stood up and hugged him.

"Shut up stupid," Misty said. "You know we'll always be with you."

"Yeah," Brock said. "We'll be with you till the end of the line."

"Pika pii pii pika pii!"

* * *

Ash was sailing away on his Greninja towards the horizon. He didn't know what was going to come up, but he was sure that he would be ready for it.

His friends and allies were waving him off a bit reluctantly behind him. They'd tried pretty hard to get him to get him to stay but Ash had gone on with his idea anyway.

Gulliver stood out though, as he had the Tempo Badge pinned to his chest. It sparkled even in the fading light, and somewhere, Ash felt a fleeting pang for it, as if he wanted to claim it again. He shook his head- now that he had only four Badges he was feeling a whole lot better and didn't want to ruin it.

Ash hoped, deep down, that he wasn't turning into someone like the other Gym Leaders. He could feel how having the Badges was changing him... it had been all too apparent in the past few weeks that he had morphed into someone very different from who he was.

He had never told the others about it, but that was one reason that he just had to go back. He was losing himself… he could feel it, and he needed to go back and remember what he had been before all of this had happened.

* * *

"Wow, he's really gone," Misty said.

"I was kind of hoping he'd turn around," Celera sighed. "So I guess all we can do is wait around, huh? 'cept for you, Gulliver. You seem to be the new man in charge now."

Gulliver blushed but then he noticed something in the horizon. "Hey! There's something fast approachin' us!"

As it got closer, it was clear that it was pretty big, whatever it was, and then it let out a huge roar.

"It's a Gyarados!" Misty said, recognizing the silhouette even in the dim light.

"Is it Wade?" Duke Hamnet asked.

They all braced themselves, waiting for an attack in case this was an invader, but it did turn out to be Wade.

"I have had the worst day ever," Wade said. "I have fought hundreds- no, correct that, _thousands_ of Selena's minions ever since the crack of dawn." He then noticed Gulliver's Badge. "Huh, so you have one too now?"

"Yeah, Ash left," Gulliver said.

"What'd you mean he left?" Wade asked. "And will someone please explain to me why the telephone lines are down? Or why Selena can suddenly attack us?"

Celera gave Wade a quick run down of what had happened, but then Wade interrupted right when Celera mentioned that the Accord was now null and void.

"Wait, there's no Accord?" Wade said, shocked. "But that- why didn't Ash call me then? It means that all the oaths we took to keep what happened to Galea a secret are also ineffective! We need to call Ash back before he goes and does something stupid like challenge Selena!"

"Why do you keep acting like Selena's unbeatable?" Brock asked.

"Because she's the Pokemon League Champion!" Wade said. "Selena is the original Pokemon League Champion, the one who united Galea over three thousand years ago! Do you think that _anyone_ could beat her?"

 **A/N: On that note, we end this chapter. Thank you for reading. On a side note, when Ash gets back, he'll have to talk to people. So which of the foreigners would you like mentioned in this fanfic? I can't do everyone that Ash has ever met, most of them will just be mentioned casually in passing, but which few people would you like to see in detail?**


	61. VS Selena VII

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews. So, to answer all of your questions:**

 **Ash will get his Charizard back. I'm not so sure about giving him back all of those Pokemon given that there are too many, and that I actually want him to use the Pokemon that he's gotten in this fanfic.**

 **As for Bonnie and Squishy, I'll have to do some research on them for who they are first.**

 **I'm not sure what's meant by the Pokemon that likes surprises thing. Also, though the Champions will be coming, don't worry- Ash is still the main character here. He'll be the one doing most of the important stuff and won't be taking a backseat.**

"What d'ya mean, she's the Elite Four Champion?" Gulliver asked, bewildered. "How's that possible?"

"She is not the current one," Wade said. "Again, she is the first one… the one who united Galea together three thousand years ago _and_ the same one that tried to invade Kalos unsuccessfully twice."

"That's not possible!" Celera sputtered out after several moments of silence. "If she was the Elite Four Champion, why did she stay around as a Gym Leader? I thought that wasn't allowed!"

"She was the very first Elite Four Champion," Wade said. "And as I understand it, she is not bound by the same rules that the others are. Now, if you are wondering on the why instead of the how, well, I would have no idea as to why she wanted to stick around as a lowly Gym Leader, but she did. And that is what we have to inform Sir Ash about. He cannot go and hope to defeat her." He then turned far angrier. "And why did everyone here think it was a good idea to let our commander-in-chief leave the country while this crisis is going on?"

"He's going to come back with reinforcements," Misty said. "And hey- if Selena really is as powerful a you say she is, well then Lance, Cynthia, or any of the other Elite Four Champions should be able to take her down."

"Now that is even worse than just leaving," Wade said. "He is going to bring foreigners? Here? Into Galea?" Duke Hamnet, Celera, and Gulliver seemed to agree with the general sentiment of that sentence.

"What's so bad about foreigners?" Brock asked, slightly defensively.

Wade seemed to have realized what he was saying and so quickly changed his tone. "I do not of course, mean to insult you, Brock, Misty, or Sir Ash for that matter. It is just that we, as Galeans, are used to a certain quality or tradition of life, if you will please. An influx of… immigrants, no matter how well-intentioned would serve to throw our life off of balance. Not to mention that our people are already frightened- if they see that there are suddenly huge numbers of foreigners appearing, what would happen? Thee would be mass panic."

"Maybe you should make a giant wall around Galea to keep the immigrants out," Misty said sarcastically.

This was probably lost though on Wade, who replied, "We already have a wall, a spatial-temporal one, to be precise. Now, we need to call Sir Ash back. If none of you wish to talk to him, then I will go myself." He released his Gyarados into the ocean again.

"You probably won't get to him in time," Brock said.

"I have to try," Wade said.

"I have one question though," Misty said.

"Forgive me, but I am assuming that all of you must have several," Wade said as he climbed his Gyarados. "But they must wait for now. I have to move with all haste towards Sir Ash."

"But who's His Majesty, I mean, the Eighth Gym Leader then?" Misty asked. "If Selena is the Elite Four Champion?"

"He is the current Champion of the Elite Four," Wade said. "I myself am not sure on what happened, but he managed to somehow topple Selena using some sort of loophole and has reigned as Champion ever since- though that is a fact that is hidden from the rest of the world. No doubt that Selena is extremely bitter over it and that explains, to an extent, her ire of having someone like him lording over her."

With that, Wade left, his Gyarados moving at breakneck speed as the sun now finally set and left its place in the sky so that the stars could take its place.

* * *

Ash saw the starry sky reflected in the water below.

No wait, he told himself. That was impossible. The stars were never reflected into the water.

And that was when he realized just what it was that he was looking at- a school of Lanturn which were floating around and casting light which was coming from beneath the sea, and not above it.

It was so quiet around, and Ash was so alone. He hadn't seen anything or anyone around for miles, and he was traveling way further than he had the last time he had tried to get into Selena's domain. Come to think of it, if the barrier she had made to protect herself was gone, that meant that Ash could sneak in.

But he thought better of the idea, at least for now. For now he was going to stick to his original plan and find a way out of this place. But he did make a mental note to maybe sneak aboard there on his way back.

Looking at the Lanturn made him realize something though- these Pokemon probably had sleep-wake cycles just like all other creatures. And with the sun frozen in the middle of the sky for so long, it must have been really aggravating to them to have their lives ruined like that as night never came for so long. They didn't attack him though, and his Pikachu didn't seem to mind them either and eagerly waved at them.

His Greninja seemed to be fine, even though it wasn't a salt water Pokemon.

After what felt like an eternity, Ash found a point where the stars above seemed to suddenly fuse with the sea below as the two of them met.

Ash felt for his Badges- he had felt far much better since he had given one of them away. Now, he just needed to make a small hole through the Barrier… that is what he thought, when he realized that it was completely unnecessary.

With all the Badges at his disposal, he could actually feel the Barrier and managed to detect that there was already a weak point through which he could and his Greninja could easily slip through.

The only problem was that it was fifty feet above the ground, so he sent out his Fearow and withdrew his Greninja for the time being. It was a bit tricky managing both of them at the same time and he got his shoes wet, but that didn't bother him too much.

As he and his Fearow approached the flaw in the Barrier, Ash braced himself. He was expecting some sort of reaction from the Badges- that they would suddenly give him a splitting migraine or incapacitate him to prevent him from leaving Galea. They seemed to react oddly whenever he wandered into a region that he didn't control since they probably didn't want to leave.

But nothing like that happened, but as Ash went headfirst into the hole, he emerged into a world of total darkness.

There was nothing there. Nothing at all. And Ash and his Fearow were somehow suspended between the two places, so that Ash's head was in the void and the rest of his body was outside.

It was an extremely weird and uncomfortable situation- there was literally nothing there where Ash was, he tried breathing and surprisingly didn't pull any air inside. Okay… that meant that he should have been asphyxiating, but he wasn't.

His Fearow was wailing- it was probably even more disturbed by the whole thing than he was.

"Shh, shh, it's alright Fearow," Ash said while stroking Fearow's neck- with part of his arm here and part of it back in Galea. "This is weird, really, but I don't think that it is anything bad. We'll get through this."

"Pi pika pii pika," Pikachu said.

Fearow calmed down a bit and they entered the place fully. The only light that was there was from Ash's Gym Badges, and there was no window or light coming from where they had entered it.

Somehow they were able to talk and breathe, so that told Ash that this might be something intentionally designed.

Fearow was flying as usual, but the thing was that with there being no wind, there was no way for them to tell if they were still moving or where they were moving.

After what seemed like an hour or so, Ash got fed up of essentially just floating around and pulled out his Badges to see if they'd work somehow.

As he touched one of them, he felt himself suddenly being lurched forward though and there was a tunnel of light in front of him.

Before that though, there was an instant where he felt the Badges flare up . And it was during that second that he saw something, a huge white creature with dark orange eyes watching him.

The creature glared at him. It seemed to examine every single inch of his being, and time seemed to have completely stopped while it was doing it. The Badges seemed to respond to it, and Ash felt as if there were a force sucking him backward.

And then he was outside. The creature, whatever it had been, was gone now.

The sun shone brightly, showing that it was the morning wherever he was.

He looked around, there was no Barrier visible, so was he outside?

It was as he was thinking this that he heard a voice from above.

"Ash!" it called out.

Ash turned his head upwards to see a Charizard… and not any Charizard, _his_ Charizard. And on its back was Clemont!

"We finally found you!" Clemont screamed. He was actually crying at this pont. "Aww, Ash, you don't know ho much everyone's been lookin' for ya. You won't believe everything that happened.

"They're back in Galea," Ash said.

"Galea?" Clemont asked.

"Yeah, weren't you the one who sent Brock and Misty towards Galea with that machine of yours?" Ash asked.

"Wait- Galea is real?" Clemont asked. "As in, you've been there?"

"More than been there, I've been living there for pretty much a year by now," Ash said.

"Huh, it's been about the same time here really," Clemont said.

"Really?" Ash asked. He had been hoping that there would be some sort of a time gap, that would mean that he would have more time to gather people to come to the other's aid as quickly as possible.

"So where are they?" Clemont asked suddenly. "You've seen Brock and Misty? They're not dead?"

"No, they're back in Galea," Ash said. He then looked at his Charizard and said, "Sorry for forgettin' 'bout you buddy. How've you been?"

His Charizard roared.

"Good to know that you're health as usual," Ash said. He then lost the smile he was wearing as he suddenly became serious. "Clemont, I'll have time to explain everything, but I only want to do it once. We need to get to the Pokemon League as fast as possible. There's something I have to tell them."

"Huh?" Clemont asked.

"Where's the nearest Pokemon League?" Ash asked. "Where are we exactly, by the way?"

"A bit off the coast of Kalos," Clemont said.

"Huh, I disappeared off the coast of Kanto," Ash said. "Well, I guess this is good. But how'd you know where to find me?"

"I didn't," Clemont said. "Charizard just took me to you. It seemed to know where to go. By the way, where'd you get a Fearow?"

"I caught one," Ash said. "But like I said before, there's no time to lose. We need to go and talk to someone, maybe Professor Sycamore as soon as possible. And also Professor Oak, Professor Elm, Professor Birch, and Professor Juniper."

"What? Why?" Clemont asked.

"Because," Ash said. "There's an emergency, Clemont. I don't know if you know this, but Galea's barrier is collapsing. We need to do something to prop it up. Else the whole world's gonna come to an end."

"What?" Clemont asked.

"Yeah, like I said, it's a long story," Ash said. "But there are invaders in Galea… well, I meant technically they're not invaders, there are other people in Galea invading Gale and all but, uh, let's talk on our way…"

They headed towards Professor Sycamore's lab and on the way Ash started filling Clemont in on everything. The whole story was huge and it was well over three hours before Ash was finished even though he had tried to compact it as much as possible.

"Whoa," Clemont said, shaking his head. "Wow, you've been really busy haven't you? Huh, so tell me Ash, do your Badges still work here?"

"I didn't bother to check," Ash said. If they didn't, he might as well have given the majority of them to Brock, Misty, and Celera or even Mr. Jennings and Duke Hamnet for all the good they'd do him. He touched one of them and felt a ripple of energy, but it was much fainter than before. "Yeah, I think they do." He then sighed out of relief- it would be much easier to convince people that what he was saying was the truth if he had the Badges and they were working.

"So, you want to bring an army into Galea?" Clemont asked.

"Yeah," Ash said. "A big one… with strong Trainers so we can fight off Selena and her minions. Can we take an army into Galea, Clemont?"

"I'll have to see," Clemont said. "My lab in Lumiose City was destroyed and I didn't really bother rebuilding it, but I think it might be possible to send some more people into Galea."

"Awesome," Ash said. He was relieved… a part of him had considered the whole idea to be really stupid as there was no guarantee that any of it would work or that he'd be able to take people, even if they wanted to help him, back into Galea. "But we'll need to get the people together, and soon."

"You're right about that," Clemont said. He was punching some numbers into what looked like a cross between a calculator and a toaster. "If we don't act soon, the Barrier holding Galea is going to fall apart. And when that happens, it's going to affect all of us. Not just the Galeans."

"Right," Ash said.

"The only problem is convincing everyone else," Clemont said. "I mean, it's all well and good that we know this, but no one really believes me. I've been suspended from my position, and Professor Sycamore isn't on good terms with anyone either."

"We'll get them to believe us," Ash said. "I'm sure of it. But I should probably call my mom first of all. She must be worried sick."

"Yeah, she is," Clemont said.

* * *

One thing that Ash had forgotten about though as he had left Galea was Team Rocket. They had somehow managed to skedaddle away after he had defeated Vanessa and no one really knew where they were.

For that matter, they had currently managed to find their way towards Cinnamon City in the south. They had kept to the shadows a lot, but there were hoards of refuges everywhere.

They weren't ones to complain about this, lots of people meant that there were more gullible schmucks that they could loot for food and anything else that they needed.

"Hey James," Meowth asked, his mouth full. "Where d'ya think these people are goin'?"

"No clue," James said, munching on bread and then spitting it out. "This stuff's moldy!"

"Well, more for me then," Meowth said and began chewing it.

"Ugh," Jessie said. They were at the moment hiding in the woods away form a large crowd of people. "Look at most of these people! They stink! They hardly have anything worth stealing…"

"Yeah," James said. "And all their food is stale. Not to mention there aren't any bathrooms around here and I keep finding, well, _presents_ everywhere."

"And a lot of them have worms or diarrhea or somethin'," Meowth said. "We'll probably catch it too."

And so they left.

They weren't really going anywhere, they had no clue as to what was going on, and so they wandered until they saw something weird in a clearing.

"Is that…" James said.

"It can't be," Jessie said, tears in her eyes.

Right in front of them, were an Arbok and a Weezing.

Meowth hurried on over to them to talk to his long-lost friends.

"How did those two get here?" James asked.

"They say they came here when there was some weird light," Meowth said. "A few weeks ago and they've been wandering around since."

"Oh, I thought I'd never see you again," Jessie said and embraced her Arbok and James did the same with his Weezing.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. As you've probably guessed by now, I'm far more familiar with the old series than the new one, explaining how Team Rocket gets their old Pokemon back instead of the new ones. I'll try to make a more accurate one with respect to what's currently going on though.**


	62. VS Selena VIII

**A/N: I wanted this to be longer, but this is all that I could come up with. Sorry for the delay.**

"So, do you think Professor Sycamore will be at his lab?" Ash asked. "He usually wanders around the place, as far as a I remember."

"Yeah, he tends to do that," Clemont said. "But yeah, even if he isn't there, there'll be a phone to the League and Professor Oak, and they'll probably know where he is at least."

Lumiose City came rapidly into view and the two of them disembarked near Professor Sycamore's lab. The street was filled with people- that went without saying at this time of day- and it was odd for two Trainers to just swoop into the city at random, but no one paid them much attention. Ash returned Fearow to its Poke Ball. He didn't have Charizard's Poke Ball at the moment so Charizard just stayed outside for now.

"Is Professor Sycamore here?" Clemont asked one of the aides present there.

"Oh yeah, just at the top of the…" the aide said before he noticed Ash. "Wait- aren't you that boy on the news? The one who went missing?"

"Yeah, I sort of found him," Clemont said. "Or technically speaking I didn't actually find him- but uh, well, you get the idea."

The aide didn't seem to understand much from that, but let them through. As Ash took a good look around the lab, he noticed that a lot of things were missing. It had been a long time since he had last stepped foot in the place, but he could tell that it was a lot dustier than before. And the number of workers there had decreased, there were only two aides there right now.

Professor Sycamore was at his desk on the top floor, and boy did he look worse for the wear.

Technically speaking he wasn't so much at his desk as slumped over it, a few empty glass bottles scattered around the place.

"I never knew Professor Sycamore could snore that loudly," Clemont said.

"I never knew that Professor Sycamore could snore," Ash said.

"Pika pi," Pikachu said and ran up to Professor Sycamore and shook him awake.

"Mama… don't make me go to school again… I don't want to go…" Professor Sycamore said.

"Uh, Professor?" Ash asked.

Professor Sycamore still wasn't responding much though.

"Think we should go for the old-fashioned route?" Clemont asked.

"What da ya mean…" Ash was about to say as Clemont grabbed a jug of water and dumped it on the Professor's head.

"Pah… pah! I'm drowning, I'm-" Professor Sycamore looked at Ash and Clemont with red eyes. "I'm dreaming again?"

"No Professor," Ash said. "It's me. Remember?"

"Remember?" Sycamore asked as he started laughing hysterically. "I've been looking for you all the time… and now I'm even hallucinating like this!"

"You do realize that you're awake, right?" Ash said. "This isn't a hallucination."

Professor Sycamore groaned. "Okay, look, dream-Ash, it's nice to meet you and all but considering the fact that you're a figment of my imagination and the fact that I have a splitting headache from this hangover, could you please shut up while I try to get my life back in order?"

Ash then walked over to Professor Sycamore and put his hand over the Professor's head.

"What're you doing?" Clemont asked.

Ash then stroked the Badges. He could feel their power even now, and he said, "Metabolize all the alcohol from his body and make him feel better again."

He wasn't sure if it would work, but he did feel his hand get very warm and some clarity seemed to return to Professor Sycamore's eyes.

Then, after this was over, he just fell asleep again.

Ash groaned.

"I think we should give him some time to recuperate," Clemont said. "What did you do? Was that something using the Badges? Well, maybe he just needs some time…"

Ash sighed. "Alright then. But as long as we're here we might as well do something productive."

"Oh, right!" Clemont said. "We should go and call Professor Oak."

"I was actually gonna say that we should order a pizza," Ash said sheepishly. "I haven't had one ever since I landed in Galea. I kind of coer- I mean, asked my chefs to try but they couldn't get it right. Are they still selling stuffed crust?"

"Yeah," Clemont said.

And so, once they were done ordering a pizza and had eaten said pizza, Ash then remembered that he should probably have called Professor Oak.

'Right, but do you know the password for the computer here?" Ash asked.

"I dunno, he might not have one," Clemont said.

Professor Sycamore was still snoring away like a Snorlax. He wasn't going to be of any help anytime soon.

Ash turned it on.

"Should we really do this without permission?" Clemont asked.

"Well, I mean, this is a matter of extreme importance to the world," Ash said. "So I don't see why not."

It turned out there was no password, and there was already a contact saved as 'Professor Oak.'

Ash tapped it and the phone rang for several seconds before someone picked it up.

It was Gary. "Okay, Professor Sycamore- I don't care what you've found, we're not interested in an-" Gary then paused as he saw Ash. "Ash? That really you?"

"The one an only," Ash said. After all this time, it was quite a relief to see a familiar face. And he hadn't seen Gary in… how long? He couldn't even remember. "How you doin'?"

"Fine, fine," Gary said. "Where've you been all this time."

"It's a bit of a long story," Ash said.

It was then that Ash realized that having to tell the whole thing over and over again was going to get really tedious. It had taken nearly three hours for him to relay most of what he had seen to Clemont.

It was as if Pikachu had read Ash's mind and pointed to small red camera icon. Ash tapped it and it began recording what he was saying. This was good- he would just have to explain what had happened once and he could then send it all over the world! It would be way easier than trying to visit every single one of them individually and repeating it over and over.

This time, Ash decided to cut out some of the fluff involved and winded up the story within an hour. Gary was mostly just staring at Ash with a look of total disbelief or otherwise interrupting him occasionally with a question or two.

It was then that Ash realized, after all that work was done and he stopped the recording, that he hadn't seen Professor Oak, the person that he really needed to see.

"Where's Professor Oak?" Ash asked.

"Over at Lavender Town for something," Gary said. "But I can mail this conversation to him. Say Ash…" Gary then stopped, his eyes widening. "Oh no! Wait- wait just a moment!"

Gary then ran out of the screen's view.

"What was that about?" Clemont asked.

"Do you think he believe me?" Ash asked. It was something that he was beginning to worry about a bit more now. Sure, it was pretty obvious with his disappearance and al that Galea existed… but it was about the other things that he was far more concerned about. There was little proof about anything else other than the fact that Galea existed. And if no one believe him, they were going to be a long way away from trying to go back to Galea with him.

Gary returned ten minutes later with a sullen look on his face. "I had put a few cells were culture and they needed to be changed at just the exact right time and with his going on I forgot. And I was writing a paper on that too."

"Uh, sorry," Ash said.

"Oh, no, don't worry about that, we've got bigger problems on our hands," Gary said. "I sent the file to Grandpa and gave him a rough explanation on what it was and I think he should get back to me soon."

"Right," Ash said, glad that it seemed that Gary was believing what he was saying.

"So what're you going to do now?" Gary asked.

"Like I said, organize a force to go back to Galea," Ash said. "But for that first, I'll need a way to get back to Galea."

"I can do that," Clemont said. "Or, I mean, it might take some work and help from Professor Sycamore… maybe I can get Bill or Lanette to pitch in too. After all, this is important."

"Right… but if you don't mind me being rude, who are you?" Gary asked.

"Uh, I'm Clemotn, and I am- was the Lumiose City gym leader until a while back," Clemont said. He didn't know who Gary was, but from the conversation it was pretty apparent to him that Gary was two things: a) Professor Oak's Grandson and b) someone who Ash knew pretty well given how the two were talking.

"So, you're building an army?" Gary asked.

"That sound a bit dramatic… but yeah, I guess so," Ash said. It was then that he remembered something that he had seen back in Galea and wondered if he should mention it.

"What's wrong?" Gary asked, noticing the tension on Ash's face.

"Nothing…" Ash said.

"Oh spit it out, it clearly isn't nothing," Gary said.

"Huh, well, see the thing is that in Galea there were some ancient ruins," Ash said.

"Yeah, those are really hard to find," Gary said sarcastically.

"I'm not done yet," Ash snapped back. "Only thing is that they had been vandalized by whoever visited the place, and most of it was just plain garbage, but there was one that read, 'Ash and Gary- Best Friends Forever.' I just thought it was… odd."

Gary rubbed his chin. "Huh, now that is something you don't hear about all the time."

"Yeah, just that it was weird and all," Ash said. "That was it."

"Okay, look, Ash, this is all news and all, but I was supposed to feed the Pokemon over half an hour ago," Gary said. "I need to get on that."

"Alright," Ash said.

The call disconnected.

"Hey Ash," Clemont said. "You still have the recording of your file in the computer, right?"

"Yeah," Ash said.

"Okay," Clemont said then pushed Ash aside from the computer.

Briefly this irritated Ash- no one would have done something like this back to him in Galea. They would have definitely asked for permission first… and it was then that he grinned. It wasn't a happy one- he was actually quite saddened at how life in Galea had changed him and just how used to attention he had become.

"So here's the recording," Clemont said and pointed to a small bubble with a red video camera icon under it. He then typed in an email address. "That's the Pokemon League's- at least the one for Kalos. I think if I send them your conversation and explain what you're trying to do, they just might reply."

Once Clemont was done with that, Ash dialed someone he should have the moment he had gotten there: his mother.

"Hey, Ash," Clemont asked. "One thing I've been wondering… just how good are you with time here? I mean, how quickly do you need to get an army into Galea?"

"I'm kind of not sure," Ash said. "And I'm not sure how time works like if one day here is the same as a day back there in Galea. But yeah, we've gotta work at this fast."

Ash stopped as his mother had picked up his phone.

"ASH! IS THAT YOU!" she shouted.

"Yeah mom I just wanted to say that-" Ash began.

"Where have you been all this time?" Delia Ketchum asked. Ash had a feeling that if it was somehow possible to reach through a computer screen and pluck them out, she would've done so. "I've had no note and I wasn't so worried at first but then there was nothing, none of your friends knew and I…"

She sobbed. It was a weird experience for Ash to see his mother crying.

And so then Ash told her everything- there was no video and he went into detail, pouring out a lot more than he had for Clemont so that it was far into the night by the time he had finished and Professor Sycamore had just woken up.

"I just realized something," Clemont said suddenly. "What if we just used all of Professor Sycamore's talk time? I mean, both of those calls were to Kanto!"

"Wha-" Professor Sycamore said unceremoniously as he got up.

* * *

 ** _Several Days Earlier, In Galea_**

"What's happening?" Jenkins shouted out to someone- anyone- who would potentially be listening.

There was no reply for a while before some said, "Sir, it appears that we ran into a Wailord and it has grazed our ship. We can still continue on, but the ship will eventually need repairs in a few days."

"We'll repair it when we land in His Majesty's domain," Jenkins said. "He can't keep our ships out for very long. And we'll stay way from the combat until then."

"Alright sir."

The fleet that they were leaving behind to attack Ponyta City and other places was now far away form where they were. It was difficult to communicate with them even with their state-of-the-art systems given that something about the Barrier breaking down was messing with all sorts of electromagnetic waves. Not to mention that for some reason, all of them would stop working once they landed on His Majesty's domain. For some reason nothing worked on there.

At least, nothing had worked on there since that day long ago when the Elite Four had been overthrown.

Jenkins looked around. He couldn't help, but at this time, to wonder about what he had felt had been watching him. He couldn't help but feel that there was something really wrong with all of this- that they were headed towards a huge trap.

Not that there was much that he could do about that. He could only hope that they would survive the battle with His Majesty's forces, which would probably begin in another two days.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading.**


	63. VS Selena IX

**A/N: Crazysnivy kid, you mean Hoopa right? I haven't seen the latest movies.  
**

 **Also, I promised that this chapter would be longer. It is, but not nearly enough to justify the huge delay.**

 **Also, you may have noticed that a chapter has suddenly vanished, i.e., V. Thomdolt VI. Someone pointed out that it was just a previous chapter pasted again. I have no idea how that happened and I'm 99.9% sure that I didn't write it like that or somebody would've told me when I had first posted it online. But I can't find an original sixth chapter for that arc, and I don't see any story gap between V. Thomdolt V and V. Thomdolt VII. I have no clue what happened, but if someone does, I'd like to hear from them.**

"Oh, good, you've woken up Professor," Clemont said and patted Professor Sycamore on the head.

Professor Sycamore looked groggy, but he nearly lost it completely when he saw Ash- at least when he realized that this was really Ash that he was looking at and he wasn't just dreaming.

"I don't believe it," Sycamore said. "Is this some sort of hallucination?"

"No, Professor, it's really me," Ash said and then yawned. Now _he_ was the one feeling sleepy. "I've come back from Galea."

"Where are Brock and Misty then?" Professor Sycamore asked.

Ash got up. Suddenly, even though he had been waiting for so long to meet Professor Sycamore once he had woken up, he didn't feel like it anymore. If anything, he was tired of being cooped up inside the small room and wanted out of there.

"Look, Professor, you must have a lot of questions," Ash said. He got up. "But I've already told the story too many times today, and I really would like to go and explore Lumiose City once rather than stay here for much longer. I have a recording too."

And without a word more, Ash scooped up his Pikachu and left the place. He realized that he had no money, so his first stop was the bank. His mother had kept an emergency fund just in case Ash had ever needed it, and this seemed as good a time as any.

It was around eight in the evening and the sun had set, but the city was as bustling as ever. He felt sleepy, and maybe that was the reason that there seemed to be a strange air around the city- as if he was walking through a dream. Everything somehow felt distant as if he was watching a movie and not experiencing something directly.

He lost track of time easily. He wanted to go into the various shops but in the end for some reason or the other he wouldn't go into one and would just wander about the streets. With it getting late it was kind of a dangerous thing to do, but he was sure that the Badges, even if they had become weaker, would be more than enough to get him out of anything that he might have to face while in the city.

It was extremely fulfilling to get lost- after a while he had no clue where he was and he didn't care either. It just meant that he was nothing now- nothing but another face in the crowd. And with that, all of his duties and responsibilities seemed to vanish as if they were far way. Galea and all its problems seemed to be as good as nonexistent in this corner of the world.

He went to see a movie. He didn't understand it- it seemed to be the third part in a seven-piece installment but it didn't matter as he wasn't paying attention to what was happening in the theater anyway. No, his thoughts were drifting in and out about his friends and what he was going to do now. And then his thoughts drifted to earlier times, back when his only stress was on how to get the next gym badge, as in normal gym badges and not crazy mystical ones.

After that, he decided to get something to eat and settled on eating cake from a pastry shop that was, luckily for him, open at this dark hour of the night. Sure, it was unhealthy, and he knew it, but he didn't really care. He didn't care about much of anything at the moment.

But Ash knew that he couldn't walk around forever, and finally he did get sleepy. He hailed a cab and ordered the guy to take him back to Professor Scyamore's Lab. Yeah, he normally wouldn't have behaved that condescendingly to the guy, but he was tired and was used to people letting him get away with it in Galea.

He got to the lab, paid the driver and stumbled inside where Professor Sycamore and Clemont were talking to him but he wasn't listening to even one-tenth of what they were saying and told them that he needed to hit the hay. His head had begun throbbing and he really needed some rest. Surely everything would be better and feel better in the morning…

* * *

"Ash! Ash! Look, I know you came back late, but it's like eleven in the morning and that's kind of pretty late given that Professor Oak and half the Pokemon League of Kalos wants to talk to you," someone said.

Ash realized that the voice belonged to Clemont and he groggily managed to open his eyes. His head hurt and his first reaction was to tell Clemont to shut up and let him go back to sleep.

"Can't that all wait for a while?" Ash asked.

"Well, maybe, but it'll really kill your circadian rhythm if you sleep like this. Also, Professor Sycamore saw your clip and suggested that we could put it on the Internet, or we could get some TV station to broadcast it, but then he was afraid that it might cause widespread panic," Clemont said. "What should we do?"

Ash was in no mood to get up and think about the problem. At the same time, he also knew that lying there in the bed wasn't going to solve anything so he got up wearily.

Now that he was refreshed a little, he had had some time to think about the problem.

"This is how I think we should play this," Ash said to Professor Sycamore and Clemont as he munched on his breakfast cereal. "See, this is a worldwide problem we have on our hands. Given that, I'd like to just go on television and tell everyone about it, but again, that would cause a whole lot of panic. At the same time though, I think everyone has the right to know about this- after all, it is something that affects all of us. So what I think we should go with is that we should tell the Elite Four of every region and let them decided on when the right time is for casting the news on television. Until then, I'd like to go to the Pokemon Studios here in Lumiose City and we can record a large news segment about the whole thing in the meantime."

"Sounds like a plan," Clemont said.

"Is Diantha there right now?" Ash asked. "Because we could ask her to come along with the rest of the Kalso Elite Four, but I might need to go and talk to the members of the Elite Four in other regions by myself in person."

"Well, it isn't very easy to ring up the Pokemon League Champion," Professor Sycamore said. "And she might be busy somewhere- but this is a matter of life and death, after all. I'll see what I can do. As for recording an interview, yes, I can arrange for that."

Professor Sycamore left to make some phone calls, leaving Clemont and Ash alone.

"So, Clemont," Ash said. "Is it possible to take more people into Galea?"

"Yes, or at least I think so," Clemont said. "The problem isn't getting in, from what my instruments tell me, but rather getting in in such a way that you don't end up completely shattering the Barrier and bringing it down in on itself. As such, we'll have to send people one at a time, and give a five minute interval in-between so that the Barrier can recover a bit and even then I don't think we can do more than three hundred people."

"Three hundred…" Ash said. "That isn't a lot. I don't know how big Selena's fleet is supposed to be, but if they're strong Trainers like some of the Elite Four then we might stand a chance." Ash then paused. "Hey wait a minute- didn't Greninja go along with Squishy? But then Greninja came back, right? So didn't Squishy come back too?"

"No," Clemont said. "Greninja just showed up near the gym one day and it seemed to be looking for you. Bonnie was looking for Squishy as well but didn't find any trace of him."

"Oh," Ash said.

Professor Sycamore then rushed in. "Ash, I have good news- Malva of the Elite Four is going to come here, you know her, she makes most of the news announcements in Kalos, after all, and so are Diantha and Drasna. Wikstrom and Siebold will be coming once they're free. And after that, I've managed to book a ticket to Kanto- or you could always fly away on your Charizard if that's faster so you can meet up with Lance. Thing is the video seems to be too long and they all want to ask you stuff in person."

"Yeah, I was kind of worried about that," Ash said. "But I guess there's no way around it."

* * *

Malva was waiting for him at the studios.

"Diantha and Drasna will be coming along in a few minutes," Malva said.

"Did you watch the video I sent you?" Ash asked.

"Not all of it," Malva said. "I mean, it was three hours long."

Ash sighed. "Well, do you guys expect me to repeat that every single time I have to explain it to someone?"

"No, no, this is how I planned this segment," Malva said. "We'll make the recording go like this: We'll play the video of you and then Diantha, Drasna, and I will be asking you questions as the video goes along if we want to know anything. And then at the end you can go and make any announcements that you might want to."

"So you're telling me that this is going to be a crossover between a reality TV show and the news?" Ash asked. "I don't like either of those things."

"You don't like watching the news?" Malva asked.

"Uh… maybe," Ash said, only now remembering that Malva was the one who reported most of the news in Kalos.

He was saved from further awkward embarrassment as Diantha and Drasna arrived. Drasna gave Ash a warm smile, but Diantha seemed far more serious.

"Ash… huh, you look different," Diantha said. "A whole lot different since we last met."

"Umm, I guess?" Ash said. "Anyway, did you see the video?"

"No, it was a bit too long and anyway we'll see it right now," Diantha said. "I have _so_ many questions that I want to ask you."

The interview room was large and spacious with a huge plasma screen television on the wall around which Diantha, Malva, and Drasna were seated on one side and Ash on the other.

"Three, two, one… roll camera," Malva said.

With that, the clip began playing.

The only thing was that the three Elite Four members asked a whole lot of questions. Now, while Gary had been content to mostly just listen to what Ash was saying, they on the other hand seemed to want to probe Ash about nearly everything. And deep within their questions, Ash thought he heard the doubt that they had regarding what he was saying.

Some of the questions he couldn't answer, like what the time period was between Galea and the rest of the world. Other questions were things that he hadn't even thought about before.

"How do the seasons in Galea work?" Diantha said.

"We could control most of the weather, so I don't know if there are many real 'seasons' that you could talk of strictly, but people always had a sense of, yeah, there are seasons if only in name," Ash said. "Not to mention you couldn't mess around with them too much… it's very hard to get the weather right. I mostly just gave up trying to control it."

"What do the people there eat?" Drasna asked.

"I guess whatever they find?" Ash said. "I never really paid attention to it."

"There's electricity, right, to run some of the telephones… how do you generate that?" Malva asked.

"There are power plants… uh, somewhere I guess," Ash said and scratched his head. "I kind of don't know, I never really thought about it."

"What are your economies based on?" Diantha asked. "Oh, are there any movies in Galea?"

"Uh, I guess most people just farm," Ash said. "The only ones with any real power or money are the nobility or the Gym Leaders… and about movies I never asked but I don't think they'd be bothered. Most people in Galea live in makeshift houses after all, and most of them have never seen a radio, let alone a television. So I guess no movies then."

"How far can you the Badge's powers up to?" Malva asked. "A mile? Ten miles?"

"Uh, I don't know, I never really tested the limits," Ash said. "Usually I could only use it as far as I could see, but there was this one time that I was kinda pulled out of my body and could use them further…"

"So why didn't you do anything to help the people of Galea with their technological problems?" Malva asked.

"I kind of don't know how to make anything more complex than toast," Ash said. "And I can't make a toaster either."

And so it went on and on. Every single time a question was asked, they had to pause the footage. And needless to say Ash was slowly becoming very, very, irritated by the time they were almost done. It took them five hours to get to the end of the clip.

"Now, Ash do you have any things you'd like to say to our viewers at the end of this?" Malva asked.

Ash turned to fully face the camera and said, "Whoever is watching this, I just want you all to know how serious everything is. We need to diffuse the situation in Galea. But for that we need people. We need volunteers to help stem off the soldiers who are invading and hurting my people. But I should warn you all, Galea is a much more brutal place than any of you can possibly imagine. You should take that into consideration, because there's the chance that you might not come back alive. We can take a hundred people at most. Three hundred people to help the citizens of Galea. A hundred people to get safety for millions. But again, these people that we're up against are nothing like you'd have ever faced before. They'll kill you just for getting in your way."

Malva did some sort of weird hand gesture that Ash didn't understand but the camera stopped rolling.

"Ash…" Malva said. "I, uh, am not sure how to say this, but that was way too depressing. We need a charismatic leader, someone who can boost morale."

At this point Ash had had enough and had lost most, if not all of his patience. "What do you expect me to do then? Do I go and tell people that it's all sunshine and candy back in Galea? Whoever goes with me needs to know how serious the situation is there- I've been there for over a year and nothing that I've ever seen even comes close to what I see in Galea everyday. The very worst of Team Rocket is still better than the best of Galea."

"Yes…" Diantha said, "But Ash, all you've been talking about it doom and gloom for the last few hours, people need hope during this time. Ash, I've seen you be charismatic before, and if there was a time we needed that, it's now."

"But that is how Galea is," Ash said.

"Few people will join you with talks like that," Drasna said.

"I don't want people who aren't fully committed to helping them or are prepared to lose their lives for this cause," Ash said. "After all… the Badges do protect me to a large extent… I can't say that I'm risking my life too but I won't have any more innocent lives on my hands anymore…."

"But Ash, don't you think that well, you haven't touched upon other things?" Diantha said.

Before Ash could reply, Clemont came in, panting.

"Ash, there's something important I need to tell you," Clemont said. He then looked at the cameras and froze.

"Don't worry, they aren't recording," Drasna said.

"Good, uh, well, see, I managed to rearrange my old machine, and I think I'll have it u and running by next week," Clemont said.

"Next week?" Ash asked. "Can't- can't you get it done faster?"

"Sorry, no," Clemont said. "I know that you need to get there back as soon as you can, but I can't get it working before then. But that's not all there is to the bad news… thing is that as far as I can tell the Barrier isn't going to last, Ash. It's gonna collapse no matter what you do for it. We need to disassemble it slowly instead of it coming crashing down all by itself."

"…How are we gonna disassemble it?" Ash asked.

"I guess if it was put up using the Badges, you'll have to dissemble it using them too," Clemont said. He then pulled out a few sheets of paper with writing and numbers on them. "It is going to take, uh, about three months for it to unravel completely on its own."

"Can't we prop it up somehow or something?" Ash asked. "I mean, I still don't know _why_ they bothered putting it up there in the first place. If it was there for an important reason, then why would we bring it down?"

"Ash, I think I know the answer to that," Malva said. "I think the only reason they put that Barrier up in the first place was because they knew that their rule was at an end. You've told us all about how the Gym Leaders have mostly kept the majority of the population in poverty. In short- they're tyrants. And tyrants never want their people to be free, Ash. Think about it, they must have noticed that the world around them was changing, and fast. Monarchies no longer existed and things like universal human rights were cropping up. They couldn't let such things possibly enter into the lives of ordinary Galeans or they'd start demanding the same things too. Sure, they might have magical Badges but even they can't deny the will of the people for long. And so, in order to maintain their power, they just cut themselves off from the rest of the world so they could be absolute rulers forever. There isn't any real threat to Galea, Ash. They just made that up so that you wouldn't try and break it down."

"And I have another thing to add," Drasna said. "Once they had overthrown the Elite Four, they must have been afraid of someone coming to topple them from a foreign region. You mentioned that the people of Galea are scared of retaliation from Kalos, right?"

"Not to mention, if we had any idea of what was going on in there," Diantha added, "we would've gone there and stopped them ourselves once we knew how horrible they were towards the people there. Ash, I believe the Barrier's necessity is just something they made up to try and slow you down."

Ash shook his head, "I can't shake the feeling though that they were telling the truth about that part at least, and I don't think Wade was lying to me…"

"Regardless, we need to act," Clemont said.

"Yeah," Ash said with firm conviction. "After all, the problem is that we don't know enough and for that I need to go and face Selena and His Majesty."

"What's your plan?" Malva asked. "You know more than we do."

"I think we should gather all the volunteers we could, and… hey Clemont, where will your machine send us?" Ash asked.

"Somewhere close to the border," Clemont said. "I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that."

"That's alright," Ash said. "But it will send all of us at the exact same place, right?"

"Yeah, so long as we don't take too much time in-between," Clemont said.

"Then what we'll do is that first we'll all go and stabilize the situation in my domains," Ash said. "After that we'll deal with Selena and His Majesty."

"But as I understand it," Diantha said, "aren't _you_ the one who ended up in Galea in the first place? I know you think you need help taking on Selena Ash, but you've grown, and I think it's… well, almost destiny somehow. The one who is going to ultimately solve all these things is you, Ash Ketchum. You should go straight for His Majesty's island after we land, and let us take care of your people."

"I… that's a great offer, but the thing is that they are kind of scared of taking help from foreigners," Ash said. "I think I'll need to be there to let them know that you guys don't mean any harm."

"Ash, your boat leaves tonight," Clemont warned as he glanced at his watch. "You should be getting your things together, well, whatever things you have soon."

"Then he'd better go and give us another speech at the end," Malva said. "Come on Ash, I'm going to turn those cameras one, and I expect a better speech this time."

Ash sat down, but before that he scooped up his Pikachu in his arms. If there was one thing that could make him see the brighter side of life, it was his Pokemon.

The cameras began rolling.

Ash started. "You see, it's dangerous, what we're about to do. And I should warn all of you that there will be no turning back. But at the same time let's remember the people of Galea. People who have always had very little and have lost everything. And it isn't just them who are at risk there. All of us are. The people we are up against are crueler than anything you can imagine. But just because the monsters we face are stronger than what we've battled before doesn't mean that we should fear facing them. They are, after all, monsters just the same. And we can't act like children and pretend there are no monsters under the bed, because trust me, there are. And we will come out victorious, and we will save Galea, both for her people, and for the rest of us. We will bring its citizens out of poverty and help them usher in the prosperity that we've made for ourselves, a world where people and Pokemon leave freely. So who's with me?"

 **A/N: Yeah, reason for all this delay is because I kind of hit a wall with writing. I mean, I hyped up this segment so much and then I didn't even bother to update on time, which is something I'm sorry for. Thing is that I know what is going to happen after Ash reaches Galea pretty well, but I was always a bit hazy on this bit and so I contemplated making it longer, but I realized that it would just end up being filler. Yeah, Ash will reunite with a lot of his friends, but Galea is where the story is, after all.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	64. VS Selena X

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! To answer Guest's questions one by one, first of all Skorupi and Grimer were caught in the Thomdolt arc as Ash wanted a Poison type Pokemon or two. If it isn't written there, well, it was probably in the lost chapter, which means that I'm now closer to figuring out what happened in that missing chapter. Maybe I'll get around to writing a new one to fill in. But yeah, sorry about that. And as for this whole sending Ash back thing, I am beginning to regret it. When I first planned out this fanfic, I didn't even have Ash as the main character, just another normal generic person but I thought Ash would be cool to add at the last minute, and so this part about him going back and forming an army was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing and I'm just now realizing how bogged down the story is getting because of that. But, I can't exactly go back now so I'm going to try to go through these parts quickly instead of dragging it out.**

Ash groggily rubbed his head as he got off the ferry to Kanto. He didn't actually remember much of the journey as he had spent most of his time in his room trying to avoid all contact with the outside world. He had enough on his mind. And so, as he had boarded the ship from Kalos at night, he arrived in Kanto just before the crack of dawn.

And to make it all worse, for the very firs time, he had managed to get seasick. And no, the Badges apparently did nothing to fix that. Mr. Jennings had told Ash about how they only worked for 'major' ailments and so a common cold or seasickness probably wouldn't have counted. And so with all the throwing up he had to do, he had barely gotten any sleep for the night. Yes, this was quickly becoming a pattern for him.

After that, he waited for his escort to arrive from the Pokemon League… only for said escort to end up being delayed by two hours during which he could've very easily flown to Viridian City on his Charizard, where the conference was being held, but he had been specifically told by the Pokemon League of Kanto to wait. The said escort consisted of two Officer Jennnys, who Ash couldn't tell apart but was sure that Brock would've been able to. They said that they had been late due to traffic and there was some sort of riot but Ash had kind of zoned out of everything they were saying by that point.

But still, Cerulean City was nice enough. Ash considered dropping by the gym to visit Misty before he remembered that Misty was back in Galea. After that, his police escort took him _on foot_ up Mt. Moon which took close to forever compared to how quickly they could've moved using his Charizard, but the two officers were under strict orders to move by land because it was 'safer' somehow. And yes, Ash didn't get that at all and questioned them throughout regarding why they were acting very strange, to which they simply said, 'the League orders it' and didn't add anything more so Ash gave up pretty soon.

Ash groaned as his legs felt like pudding after trekking for so long and he collapsed in the bed in the Pokemon Center on the other side of Mt. Moon when they finally reached it at night.

His Charizard mainly just followed them from above, and usually flew away for short periods of time towards the surrounding areas as it got bored. Ash knew that _he_ was definitely getting bored by all of this.

The next day, they set out for Pewter City. The two officers had been changed and two new ones came but if they hadn't told Ash that they were switching officers he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference really.

At Pewter City, Ash considered dropping by the old gym- but then he knew that it would mean facing Flint and all of Brock's siblings and he didn't know what he'd say to them when they asked if Brock was doing okay. Yeah, sure, Ash had left Brock being very okay but given how much time had passed, well, he couldn't say anything and didn't want to leave them worried.

By noon that very day they reached the outskirts of Viridian City where the officers were changed again. These two new ones seemed to be less wary than the others and a bit more cheerful.

One of them, who said that she was tasked especially with guarding the Viridian Forest began singing a catchy tune, perhaps hoping to cheer Ash up.

"I'm on the road, the road to Viridan City, and I'll meet my friends along the waaay-"

Ash nodded to the rhythm. It was a good tune.

But for the record, he didn't get to meet any of his friends on the way. Nope, all of them were far, very far, from him.

* * *

When Ash arrived at Viridian City he was greeted by a group of angry-looking League Officials who asked him why he was so late, to which the Officer Jennys decided to chalk up to him waking up late after the trek on Mt. Moon.

"Hey- I could've gotten here way faster if I just flew," Ash snapped at them and at the League Officials. He had had enough of their nonsense. "So when's the conference? I'm a tight schedule here folks!"

It did nothing to endear him to the officers or the League officials, but he was immediately ushered into the Viridian City Gym, where there was a large wooden table in the center around which were gathered a lot of people. Some of them Ash instantly recognized- Lance and Agatha of the Elite Four of Kanto, Drake from Hoenn, most of the gym leaders from Kanto, some from Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh, and Professor Oak and Professor Rowan.

Ash anxiously looked around to see if any of his friends- May, Max, Dawn, Paul, Iris, or Serena had made it but was disappointed. Before he could ask where they were though, he was immediately called before a panel which consisted of the President of the Kanto Pokemon League, Lance, Sabrina, Blaine, and Professor Oak.

Now, Ash had already dislike the way he had been interviewed back in Kalos, but this was way worse than this. First of all, rather than being greeted with warm smiles as he had expected, all of the members of the panel with the exception of Lance seemed displeased to see him- even Professor Oak for that matter fell into the category of people who just simply acknowledged Ash's presence.

Ash was made to stand on a pedestal with a microphone where he was visible to everyone else gathered there, while the panel occupied a smaller table to the side, but they were all visible to the rest of the crowd sitting at a much larger table.

"Um, Ash, mind telling us why you're late? We were sort of expecting you around noon," Professor Oak asked.

That was it. There was nothing asking if Ash was well, if he had been alright in all these days that they hadn't seen each other. Yeah, after all this time of being separated, that was the first thing that Professor Oak said to him.

"I would've been here faster if I flew, but I was guarded all the way and it slowed me down," Ash said.

"Those officers were there for your benefit," Blaine said. "And we've already lost enough time as it is, let us begin. So, do tell us, what explanation do you have to give for recent events and for your disappearance?" Something about the way he said it made it odd... as if he was somehow blaming Ash squarely for everything that was going on.

Ash frowned. "It's a long story… didn't you guys see the video that I made? Or the one that Diantha made?"

"We hardly had time for that," Professor Oak said. "And we'd prefer to hear things out from you."

Ash let out an exasperated sigh. If he was going to be asked to reiterate his story all the time, then he would never be done telling it.

Ash was quite fed up with the whole committee at this point and it took a huge amount of self-control for him to not simply walk out of the place. There were people in Galea who were counting on him to come to their aid. "Alright, then, but keep in mind that this is going to be the short version of the story. We can get to the long version later, and right now we need to move fast."

And so Ash told them, in as few words as possible, everything that had happened to him. The whole thing took less than an hour, and within that time Ash was thirsty and hungry. His Pikachu could sense his discomfort and looked up at him, worried.

"And now we need to mobilize, and I have to say that it's all risky, but we need to go quickly. Every moment we delay is a moment that Selena's goons have to terrorize the people of Galea," Ash said.

There was no real applause at this point, and people just looked at him questioningly.

"Um, Ash, first of all, this was a nice story and all," Professor Oak said, "but tell me one thing… how do we believe you?"

Ash was flabbergasted. Of all the people to doubt him- Professor Oak? But then he saw that Professor Oak looked troubled by everything he had heard, and saw this mirrored in the faces of several people in the conference.

And it was then that it hit Ash: they didn't _want_ to believe what Ash was saying. Right now, they had no real idea about the threat that was looming over them, and with the strange portals between Galea and the rest of the world now no longer appearing, they assumed that the worst of it was over. What they didn't want at this point was someone like him telling him that it was all going to get worse. And not just worse- the public of Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh, Hoenn, and Unova would all be severely agitated upon learning what he had to say. It would lead to social unrest- and maybe even mass riots- something that everyone there was eager to avoid.

And the funny thing was, that on some level Ash could see where they were all coming from. While Ash had never really embraced his administrative duties as a Gym Leader of Galea very seriously, he had learned quite a bit about ruling and it was what allowed him to immediately realize what people in similar positions of authority would want to do. And that explained why they had sent him 'guards' to be with him all the time- because what they really wanted was to keep an eye on him- not for his protection.

"You want proof?" Ash asked. He then turned to glance at the ceiling and held the Irresolute Badge in his hand and shot a lightning bolt from his fingers.

There were startled cries- and the lightning bolt seemed to have set off the sprinklers and they began pouring down on the audience before Ash used his Badges again to fix them.

That should have well been evidence enough, but Ash knew deep down now that it was unlikely that they would ever act. Because acting would mean acknowledging that there was something wrong, and it would be so much easier for them to merely doubt Ash's story, and say that Clemont's calculations were wrong.

"Be as that may, Ash," Professor Oak said, "your proposal to send people there seems to be a dangerous one."

"It _is_ dangerous," Ash said. "Very dangerous. But we need to get the word out and get people to-"

"But tell me this," the President, Mr. Goodshow said, "are you so sure that Galea must and will collapse? Whose word do we have for this- simply Clemont's- a person who, according the Kalos League, has not had a good track record. Before I'd commit anything to this venture, I would definitely like an independent body of scientists to confirm this. Before we're sure, we can't possibly risk the chances of mass hysteria that will ensue if we broadcast this to the public at large."

There were general murmurs of assent and Ash felt his blood boil. They would all be too late, too late to do anything if it continued on like-

"Gramps, we can't just do that," a voice came from where the spectators were seated and Gary Oak stood up. "Look, it's been obvious that there's something going on and Ash isn't lying here. And I trust Ash, even if this Barrier isn't going to end all of humanity as we know it and if Clemont is wrong- it doesn't change the fact that the people that Ash left behind are suffering. And we're their only hope."

Lance stood up. "I agree. We cannot sit by idle here."

Ash glanced between the two- if Lance was backing Ash, well, that meant that Ash would have substantial support from many people gathered there.

"Now look, these are people that we don't know," Professor Oak said. "And we don't know fully the dangers of going there- and let's say that for a moment, we do agree to send people there, it could take months to authorize an army with all the bureaucratic measures and checklists we'd have to fill-"

"No it won't," Gary said. "All that Ash needs are volunteers. We can get volunteers fast enough, so long as everyone knows what they're doing. And I'm ready to go- my Blastoise hasn't seen much action since the Johto League along with my other Pokemon, but they're still rarin' to go."

"Gary, I'm not letting my only grandson walk into what sounds like an actual minefield except even more dangerous!" Professor Oak snapped.

"Sorry Gramps, but you don't get to tell me what to do anymore," Gary said defiantly. "People need to go there to help whoever's trapped there."

"And I volunteer as well," Lance said.

At this point someone in the audience stood up whom Ash thought he recognized- but wasn't exactly sure from where.

"Uh, just a minute everyone, if you don't mind me interrupting," the man said. "For those of you who don't know me, I am Bill, creator of the Pokemon Storage System. I've been in contact with Clemont for the past few days, and if anyone wants my two cents thrown into the conversation, well, I agree with what Clemont says. He may be a bit of a loose cannon, but he's right in that we're all going down if we don't save Galea. Furthermore, we can have the machine ready to transport any volunteers within two days." It was then that Ash had a vague memory of a Krabby and a huge shadow that looked like a Dragonite near a lighthouse somewhere.

"Two days is good," Ash said. "I think we can all gather in Lumiose City by then. Who else intends to volunteer?"

To Ash's dismay, around twenty people walked out when he said this and he guessed those people didn't want to hear any more of this.

A lot of hands still went up though.

"Okay, no new or inexperienced Trainers," Ash said. "Selena's soldiers aren't very strong compared to normal Trainers elsewhere even if they have been trained more than other people in Galea, but they outnumber us by a large margin. We were expecting around three hundred people since that was the maximum we could send, but if we have Trainers like Lance and Diantha with us, we can definitely do it with less."

There were general murmurs of assent.

"Wait, hold on, you can't do this!" the President said.

"Actually, they can," Lance said. "This, what we're doing now, is a private matter and the Pokemon League can decide to do whatever it wants regarding this matter, but we can certainly continue. And as for keeping this matter a secret, well, there are already so many people who know about this… who knows when the matter could get leaked to the press?"

The President looked infuriated. "Are you threatening me, League Champion?"

Ash wasn't really sure what was going to happen now. Who was really in charge here? The Board of Governors of the Pokemon League, or the Elite Four Champion? It was a question he had never asked himself, and now that he thought about it, Mr. Jennings had been surprised that Ash hadn't been able to answer, 'Well, who runs Kanto? Who runs the government there? Is it a monarchy, a republic, an aristocracy?' when Mr. Jennings had asked it during a lesson he had been giving Ash. Ash had never really thought about who ran Kanto- he just assumed that it got done. Ditto for Johto, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos.

"No, I'm just stating the facts," Lance said. "Facts that you should be able to see as clearly as I can. I didn't mean it as a threat, I just wanted to remind all of you that given how many people know about this, it is going to be nearly impossible for us to keep it secret. And if Diantha wants to make it public in Kalos and not in Kanto- well, the news will leak over somehow. And I think we need to tell people the truth of what's happening. Else all they'll have to believe in is rumors- rumors that may well be worse than the actual truth. And if the truth gets out and it isn't from our mouths, people will think that it's a cover-up. There were already riots near Cerulean City- what are we waiting for?"

It was then that something else hit Ash. "I forgot something, whoever wants to come along with us should bring as much food as they can, and not just for themselves. Food's always been a bit harder to get in Galea compared to other places, and I don't doubt that Selena's minions are burning down food stores wherever they can and stealing what they need. We're going to probably have a famine on our hands once we get there."

"I think we can send a lot of food so long as we don't have that many people," Bill said. "But given that we need to move quickly, the ferry to Kalos leaves tomorrow at noon. If we're going to go, we need to be fast then."

The rest of the night Ash got little sleep yet again given that he had to basically oversee all the preparations being done by himself now, and everyone that had volunteered had tons of questions that he needed to answer.

Amidst all the chaos he was told that other Trainers from Sinnoh and Unova would be joining them directly at Lumiose City. He wanted to thank Gary and Lance for sticking up for him, but both of them seemed almost as busy as he was.

All through the night, Ash couldn't help but think about returning to Pallet Town. It had been so long since he had last been there, and he wanted to see his mother one last time in person in case, well, in case this was the end. But something or the other kept coming up- What type of Pokemon did Selena's soldiers have? Were their any vaccines that they should get before traveling to Galea? What kind of money was used in Galea, and should they bring some?

With all of that, Ash kept pushing the time for meeting his mother for later over and over again, though he was sure that he would find time for it. But as the last of the problems sorted themselves out and the sunrise was only a few hours away, he felt the ground practically spinning underneath him and he collapsed just two feet from his Charizard and didn't get up until he was violently shaken by Gary who said that the ferry was going to leave Cerulean City in just an hour. Everyone else had either booked a hot air balloon or were flying, so Ash groggily climbed on top of his Charizard while Gary got on his Pidgeot.

It seemed that there wouldn't be any time to visit her after all. And with a sad glance towards Pallet Town, he took off.

* * *

At Lumiose City, Ash found himself even busier than before. He had managed to get some shuteye on the ferry but that was it. A thousand problems- or it seemed so- had managed to turn up at the last moment, and of course he was practically the only one who could solve them.

One thing that happened was that Squishy had come back. Ash wouldn't have known this if it weren't for Greninja leaving his Poke Ball and then walking outside the city where Ash found Squishy along with Bonnie, and it seemed that Squishy was eager to accompany them as well.

"And I'll come too," Bonnie said.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you," Ash said. "Bonnie, you're too little and you don't have any actual experience with fighting Pokemon. I'm not even letting adults come if they don't have some conditions fulfilled and really, Bonnie, you'd be safer here."

Bonnie almost started crying. "B-but I want to come!"

"I'm sorry, I know you do," Ash said. "But I can't take that risk. And think about Clemont- he's staying behind too 'cuz he needs to monitor things along with Bill. Don't you need to make sure your brother doesn't get into any trouble? And Squishy will be fine, and once we're done in Galea, he'll be back with you."

Bonnie still looked unhappy, but said, "Okay."

The time to leave had come.

All in all, they had around eighty volunteers. Among them were Lance, Bruno, and Lorelei of the Kanto Elite Four (Agatha had stayed behind as someone needed to, and she was pretty old so they all decided it should be her- though they never said that to her face.) Steven, Cynthia, and Diantha were there along with Drasna. Among the gym leaders, Sabrina, Blaine, Roxanne, Wallace, Flannery, and Koga were there. And of course, there was Gary and other Trainers who Ash didn't know but the others swore to their ability. Sadly, Dawn, Serena, and the others that he had traveled with for a long time seemed to be too far away or no one was able to contact them.

The machine was two cylinders connected by a hollow tube.

Bill cleared his throat. "Uh, well, this is a slight modification of a teleportation device I had made earlier. Now, the first time I had tried it, there had been some, ah, _unfortunate_ complications as a Pokemon had managed to sneak into another one of the doors but let's not get into that. Now, to put things into perspective, we will be sending each of you there one by one. The place you'll end up will be near the ocean. Now, a problem is that given that the Barrier around Galea is constantly shifting slightly apparently, you might be cast in different directions. I expect everyone to land within ten miles of each other though."

"In that case, I should go first," Ash said.

"Uh, actually, we were thinking that you should go last, Ash," Clemont said. "Because of your Badges even if the machine messes up somehow and you land up somewhere else, you'll still get through. That way if there was anyone who went missing on the way, you can help them get through as well. My recommended order would be to send in the Elite Four members here dispersed throughout the eighty people, we can send Lance first, so that in case we send you a bit too far apart, at the very least you'll be next to some strong Trainers in case trouble happens to pop up. But before we send you guys though, we can send the food crates over first."

Bill nodded. "This'll have the dual benefit of testing out the machine on something inanimate first, and the second benefit that we'll be sure our food is there."

A wooden crate about twice as big as Ash was placed inside one of the chambers. The other one was still closed, which made Ash wonder why they had bothered to put it there in the first place.

And then Bill hesitatingly, slightly over-dramatically, pressed the big red button and then the machine… did nothing.

"Huh?" Clemont said and began checking the wires again. "Everything seems to be normal."

Ash tapped his foot impatiently.

Fifteen minutes passed and still Bill and Clemont couldn't come up with a solution.

It was then that Ash's anger was interrupted by… laughter? And out of the air materialized a Pokemon that Ash recognized very well.

"Hoopa!" Ash exclaimed. "Were you the one causing all of this?"

The Pokemon snorted in apparent glee and nodded.

Bill tried again, and the machine worked. Which either meant that the crate was now in Galea, or it had been completely vaporized. Bill glanced at the screen and based on a marker he had attached to the crate, it showed that it was there in Galea, at least for a few seconds before the Barrier resealed itself and stopped anything from transmitting outside again.

"Hoopa! What brings you here?" Ash asked.

"Hoo hoopa hoo!" the Pokemon snickered.

"Oh, so you want to help?" Ash asked and the Pokemon nodded. "That's great!" He then turned to Clemont. "Hey Clemont, I can't take Charizard with me, he wouldn't fit in something so big and I'll be taking Hoopa and Squishy and Pikachu, so I'm gonna have to ask you to take care of this Drapion that I'd caught." Ash then returned Charizard to its Pokeball.

"Alright Ash," Clemont said.

There were a few more food crates and those went in fine, and then Lance stepped up.

"See you on the other side," Lance said.

As far as Bill and Clemont could tell, it had all gone smoothly.

And so it continued. Every ten or so Trainers and Elite Four member would be sent just in case they got a bit too separated from each other.

The whole process took around an hour and then lastly, it was Ash who was left.

"Good luck, Ash," both Clemont and Bonnie said.

"Thanks," Ash said and then took a deep breath as he got into the chamber and the doors closed.

A red light flashed from above, and he saw nothing.

Clemont and Bill, who were monitoring the machine from outside, suddenly started.

"What happened?" Bonnie asked, seeing the expression on Clemont's face.

"There's something wrong," Clemont said, suddenly panicking. "The machine sent Ash over there all right… but it's like he disappeared mid-transit."

"Disappeared?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah," Bill said. "And we can't detect him." He pointed to the monitor on the control panel. "See? Normally we would've seen him break the Barrier and land close to where the others are. Normally, that is, but it seems that after breaking through the Barrier, he suddenly turned or something and he doesn't seem to be with the others."

"Huh?" Bonnie asked. "But… what happened? Did Ash did something with those magic badges to steer away from where you sent him?"

"Why would he do that?" Clemont asked. "He wouldn't want to go away from the others. It looks like something just snatched him away on his path."

"Could it have been Hoopa playing another trick?" Bill asked. "It seems to be in the nature of that Pokemon…"

"Maybe, but I don't think Hoopa has that kind of power…" Clemont said. "Plus, Hoopa causes mischief, this is something dangerous and it wouldn't prank on us with something like this. No, it was something else. Something else grabbed Ash and moved him from where he was supposed to go."

* * *

Ash had felt nothing after the flash of light- he just found himself a few feet above water in an ocean somewhere and let out his Greninja on top of whom he landed lightly.

He looked around and what he saw puzzled him… there was no one else there! How odd. He sent out his Charizard to scout around for a few miles but Charizard came back having found nothing. There was a large landmass to the east of where they were, so that's where Ash decided to go before he saw what was His Majesty's island.

So that's were they were. Alright then, it was all cool, he could still navigate back to the mainland now that he knew where he was and hopefully meet up with the others there.

Oh wait, they hadn't decided where to meet up once they had gotten to Galea- although Ash had discussed moving to Ponyta City, he had never said it explicitly as the place to go to first. However, it was where Brock, Misty, and the others had been last he had went there and it was probably also where Lance and the others would end up going to eventually so Ash asked Greninja to move in that direction.

 _Wait._

"Huh?' Ash said and looked around. His Pikachu also seemed to be confused, and his Charizard, who was circling above him, hadn't heard anything either. Hoopa seemed unfazed as well. Had Ash imagined it?

 _Wait._

Ash was sure of the voice now, he had heard it so clearly. But when he mentioned it to Hoopa and Pikachu they looked at him like how people usually looked at psychiatric patients, but Ash was sure of where he heard. He turned his head towards His Majesty's island, yup, that was where the noise had come from. And as he looked at the island, he felt his Badges resonate. Yes, there was something there, something that seemed to be calling to him.

Ash shook his head. He could always return to the island later- like he had told Diantha earlier, it was imperative that he stabilize the situation on the mainland first. Duke Hamnet and Celera had been none too happy at the prospect of foreigners coming in, and so Ash knew that he had to accompany Lance so that there were no… untoward incidents.

 _Come here… help me…_

Ash's head whirled around to face the island again. The voice had spoken to him, and his Badges had resonated with it. As he stared at the island though, he felt himself drawn inwards towards it. As if it was pulling him like a magnet would iron, closer and closer…

It took him several minutes to realize that he wasn't just imagining it- they were actually moving closer to the place and at an alarming rate!

And then Ash felt a void constrict around him… and then he felt nothing.

* * *

"I don't see Ash anywhere," Lance said. "What do you think happened?"

Lance had managed to gather everyone who had volunteered for the mission in one spot. Everyone except Ash himself.

"I dunno," Gary said. "Maybe something turned up and he's dealing with something else. But we need to get to land fast though, those crates won't hold the food against the water for long. Once we're on the mainland which Ash described, we can find some of his allies and then have them reconnect with Ash wherever he is."

"I don't like this though," Lance said. "We were supposed to stick together… but the most important member of our party is gone."

Gary shrugged. "Hey, I'm still here. Don't know what you're talking about." Lance glared at Gary.

"This isn't the time for jokes!"

"You're right, this is the time to get going," Gary said. He pointed towards where he could see land. "See? That's the mainland that Ash was probably talking about. And he talked about Ponyta Bay and Ponyta City, right, that might be them. And if it isn't we can always ask around."

"And if those are our enemies?" Steven piped in.

"Well, we'll fight them then," Cynthia said. "But the important thing now to wonder is whether or not we should split up or remain as a single group. Each of them has its own advantages- together we'll be unbeatable but we'll be slow. Separated, we can cover more ground faster but we'll be more vulnerable."

"I say we stick together until we have a bearing on where we are," Diantha said.

After they agreed on this plan, the rather large group of adventurers moved at top speed towards land.

 **A/N: And so finally, yes, I gave you guys a long chapter after all this wait. And finally, we're back in Galea, the important place. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**


	65. VS Selena XI

**A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates guys. Thanks for the reviews- I didn't know that about Hoopa having not seen the movie but I'll make sure to incorporate it now.**

Ash blinked.

There was the clear sky above him, green grass around him, and a gentle humming of some Bug Pokemon in the nearby woods. The sun was shining just the right amount and he could feel his Badges which seemed to be pulsating with energy near his chest.

All was at peace in other words.

But he found himself disoriented- as if he had just woken up after a nap, and there was a nagging feeling in his head that there was something wrong.

Pikachu and Hoopa had fallen asleep beside him, and he felt like he had all of the rest of his Pokemon…

And that was when he realized what was missing and jolted up as he began shouting, "Charizard! Charizard!" His Charizard had been outside and last that Ash remembered, hadn't been transported along with Pikachu and Hoopa along with himself to... well, wherever he was.

And it also occurred to him that things were not going well- no, he was supposed to be back in the mainland in Galea right now, not… where was he again?

He looked around. He was in a clearing in a forest… but that didn't explain much. Hoopa and Pikachu got up thanks to his shouting.

"I don't know where we are," Ash said. "And I don't know where Charizard is either."

He glanced around the place and guessed that it would be best for them to figure out where they were first.

"Hey Hoopa? Can you go and scout around for where we are?" Ash asked.

Hoopa disappeared but then reappeared ten seconds later and said, _Ash, from what I can see we are on an island- a very big one- and there is a large battle going on towards the south with many ships fighting with each other. The ships are very large, and from what I can tell whoever's the defending team is doing badly.  
_

Ash guessed that meant they had been transported to His Majesty's Island which explained the battle going on towards the south. But given that Ash couldn't hear anything coming from that direction meant that the battle was a long way off.

"Okay then, our first priority should be getting out of here and back to the mainland," Ash said. "We have to meet up with Drake, Steven, Gary, and the others. Hoopa, can you teleport us out of here and back towards the sea where we were?"

Hoopa closed its eyes and after a moment replied, _Sorry Ash, but no. There's… something in the air that isn't right here. I don't know what it is but my powers aren't working like they should. Even trying to communicate with you… is difficult. I don't what it is, but if you want to get off this island we're going to have to do it manually._

Ash sighed. "Alright then, we'll just take a ride on Fearow."

Before he could do such however, he heard a weird sound coming from the nearby woods. It sounded like… crying?

Pikachu and Hoopa noticed it as well and turned to their heads as a small girl, about four years old, wandered out of the woods. She was dressed not unlike the other peasant's children whom Ash had seen which was made of hemp. She stopped crying as she noticed Ash and his Pokemon and asked, "Who are you?"

"Uh… I'm uh, Mark," Ash said. "Mark, that's it. Who're you?"

"I'm not supposed to tell my name to strangers," she sniffed. "But mommy and daddy left… they left and they forgot about me…"

"Huh?" Ash said. "What does that mean? I mean, what happened? Can you tell me a bit more clearly?"

Pikachu sidled up to the little girl. Ash guessed that people usually found Pokemon cute and easier to speak with.

And from what Ash was able to get out of the toddler, it seemed that her parents had left her in quite a hurry, either to go join the battle, or they were running away from something… the picture wasn't quite clear but Ash guessed she wasn't able to describe all of it.

"What's your name?" Ash asked.

"Lilith," the girl squeaked.

"Oh right, what did your parents look like?" Ash asked.

"They were both very big and tall," Lilith said.

Ash sighed. "That… kind of doesn't explain anything… do you remember what they did or where you lived?"

Lilith shook her head.

Hoopa had disappeared again but came back soon enough.

 _I can't find any life forms of significance within a few miles. Wherever her parents are, they aren't near here._

"So what do we do then?" Ash asked and said in a lower voice, careful so that the girl couldn't hear him, "Her parents could be dead by now if they were going towards where the battle between Selena and His Majesty is going on. And we can't take her to a combat zone either."

 _So I think the best thing to do is to take her with us._

"I don't like the idea though," Ash said. "It feels like kidnapping when her parents don't know… but we don't have time to scout half of this island looking for them when His Majesty's also going to be looking for us… well, let's fly out of here then. I think the best thing to do is keep her safe on the mainland, then we can regroup and once we beat His Majesty we can go and try to reunite her with her family. But it still feels wrong..."

 _Well, I think if they abandoned her they aren't exactly the poster child for good parenting… get it? Poster 'child?'_

"No more jokes, Hoopa," Ash said.

He then released his Fearow.

The girl stopped tugging on Pikachu's cheeks and said, "You can't fly out of here… there's a wall that won't let you out…"

 _She's right, you know. I felt a barrier holding us out about five miles above us._

"But we got in somehow, right?" Ash said. "We should be able to get out then… argh, this is just like the Barrier of Galea over again." He withdrew his Fearow.

"But if you want, why don't you break the machine?" the girl asked.

"What machine?" Ash asked.

"There's a machine that daddy was working on… His Majesty built it to make the huge wall to protect us… daddy took me to see it once…" the girl said and almost began crying again.

"Wait, wait, do you know where it is?" Ash asked.

"Near the mountains," the girl said, pointing to the mountains which Ash knew were to the north of His Majesty's island, mountains… or were they technically hills? Mr. Jennings had told him the difference once but he didn't remember it, anyway, that was where the Elite Four's headquarters were situated, and also the secret that Freyja had mentioned to him that people got to know if they ever became part of the Elite Four.

"Okay then, I guess that's where we're headed then," Ash said. "Hey, uh, Lilith, you can come with us if you want. We'll take you somewhere safe…"

"But what about momma and papa?" Lilith asked.

"Uh, we can try and see if we can find them," Ash said. He had no clue how to tell a young girl that she might never see her parents again and didn't even want to try. "Can you lead us to where the machine might be?"

The girl thought for a second and said, "Okay, sure."

She led them through the woods and throughout the whole time Hoopa kept disappearing and coming back again- it was trying to scout the area but couldn't find anything.

 _And there's something really wrong about this place- I can't feel anything. It's like if you were human and trying to walk around blindfolded. And there's something crazy going on at the top of those hills- mountains, whatever you want to call them. I don't even want to go near them. But it's a little weird, I can't find or sense a machine of some sorts…._

"I think that's pretty off too," Ash said. "I don't- well I haven't ever heard of a machine like that. I think only the Badges could do something like that… but she seems like she knows what she's talking about…"

Suddenly, Hoopa and Pikachu began acting hostile.

 _I heard something! There was something there!_

Pikachu began growling at some spot in the bushes and for a tense moment Ash waited for something to come out… but nothing happened.

 _Funny, I don't sense anything anymore. But don't get me wrong Ash- there was something there right now even though it's gone...  
_

Even Ash felt weirded out now… as if there was something watching him. He was pretty jump during the last few minutes of their walk and kept imagining shapes in the shadows of the trees that weren't there.

They reached the base of the hills and right there was the most gorgeous garden that Ash had ever laid eyes on. Berries of every variety (Brock would have a field day here) loomed out at him and seemed to be three times their normal sizes and were planted in strange patterns all across the fields.

Ash was so busy appreciating all of this that he forgot about the machine for a moment. And he didn't notice that Lilith had stopped walking and was instead glaring at him intently.

 _We've got company!_

Hoopa shouted this and Ash turned around to see a tall, handsome man dressed up in an old-fashioned suit walk towards him.

So distracted was he by the man that he didn't notice the net that fell from the sky and then constricted around him, pinning him and Pikachu to the ground. Lilith was no longer there, and standing there instead was a Zorua.

The man smiled. "Look what I've managed to fish up…"

Ash snarled and immediately went for his Badges and began drawing power from them. The man seemed to notice his intentions and pulled out a glittering object of his own- the Celestial Badge.

Ash struggled and tried drawing on his own Badges' power some more, but it was just like when he had tried to pierce the barrier that Selena had created. The more he drew on their power, the more a headache began to grow and finally he gave up.

Impossible, Ash thought. Sure, His Majesty's Badge was supposed to be stronger than any other here, but Ash had four of them versus one. There was no way that it should have been possible for His Majesty to imprison him like this.

"There is no point in struggling," His Majesty said, the smile now wiped off his lips. He sent out a Zoroark which grabbed Ash and lifted him off the ground. Pikachu was also caught up in the net, but Ash realized that Hoopa wasn't with them… meaning that he had escaped and there was still hope.

The Zoroark suddenly dropped him though and struck out at something in the air, which turned out to be Hoopa, who dropped to the ground.

 _Ack!_ Ash heard Hoopa's scream echo through his head.

"Now that is something I have never seen before," His Majesty said, examining Hoopa. "What is this Pokemon called?"

Hoopa didn't reply and instead got up to attack again but was pounced on by Zorark, and His Majesty pulled out a glowing, silvery net from his right sleeve and wrapped it around Hoopa. "Quite a troublesome little Pokemon, but I think this trap of mine will hold you for some time. I only have one and I wanted to use this to deal with her Pokemon or one of theirs, but you know, I suppose I will have to use it now. I do not assume that a simple net is going to hold something like you..."

 _Let me out! Let me out!_

Hoopa continued to struggle against His Majesty's grasp as the Zoroark picked up Ash again and began carrying him up the mountains.

It wasn't as if neither Ash nor Hoopa made any attempts to get out. Pikachu, in a bout of desperation, tried using a Thunderbolt but the net didn't seem to conduct electricity and it only ended up shocking Ash.

Time and time again, Ash kept trying to use the Badges, but they always left him feeling sick and nauseous afterwards with no result to show for them. He tried wriggling out or untying the knot that was there in the net but that didn't go very well either.

After a few hours he was carried to a cave in the mountains which opened up into a small glade filled with trees. There was a stream running nearby and in the center there was a raised gray platform on top which rested two wooden pillars and a pair of chains.

His Majesty first tied Hoopa to a small hook near one of the pillars, with Hoopa cursing at him all throughout the ordeal. He then had Zoroark open up Ash's net, but as Zoroark clawed open the net it also pushed Ash forward onto the platform where it seemed, as if by their own will, the chains came to life and wrapped themselves around Ash's arms.

"Let me go!" Ash said. Pikachu was still in the net and was tied onto the pillar opposite to that of Hoopa.

His Majesty shook his head. "I am afraid your Badges will be useless in getting out of there… that is a prison meant for something far more dangerous than you… and only the hottest of fires have been known to melt those chains. But I digress, the platform negates the powers of your Badges, and that net prevents that Pokemon of yours from causing any mischief." He then paused and glanced in another direction. "It appears that there are other matters that require my attention… Selena seems to be having some success and is now boarding my southern border. She will be on land soon, and ah well, I suppose I should not leave her waiting." He turned to Ash. "Do be good, would you, I will come back to deal with you later." He then removed Ash's Poke Balls and threw them across the glade so that Ash couldn't use them. He then took out a Poke Ball of his own and released a jet-black Charizard which he climbed on and then rode away.

As his figure retreated across the horizon, Ash immediately turned to Hoopa. "Hoopa, you can get us out of here, right?"

Hoopa wriggled in its net and said, _Sorry Ash, I don't know what this things made of- it's no normal butterfly net that's for sure. I can't use any of my powers through here and I can't teleport out either. This is worse than being in a Poke Ball!_

Ash sighed and then tried using his Badges again, but this time it seemed to be even worse now that he was on the platform… and he actually felt the chains beginning to zap him with electricity whenever he tried to.

He looked up. It was a few hours past noon judging from the sun, though given how erratic time was beginning to flow now that the Barrier was down that didn't mean much.

Ash cursed himself. He couldn't believe he had fallen for such a trick- he had dealt with a Zorua before! He should've been able to spot it! Hoopa wasn't having any luck breaking out either.

He then turned to Pikachu. "Pikachu… I don't know what kind of net that Hoopa is in but I'm betting yours is just a normal net. Can you bite out somehow?"

Pikachu began twisting and turning and trying everything but the net seemed to be woven out of something hard enough that Pikachu couldn't get through.

"Well, this is bad," Ash said. He couldn't even reach for any of his Poke Balls, and soon enough His Majesty would return, or Selena would, and then they would… well, he was sure that Selena would probably kill him or torture him but he was unsure as to what His Majesty wanted.

He tried racking his brain, thinking of something, anything, that could've been useful in this situation but kept drawing up a blank.

 **A/N: And that ends this chapter. Do please rate/review if you liked, and until next time, I guess.**


	66. VS Selena XII

Today is truly a momentous day, His Majesty thought to himself as he soared above his territory on top of his beloved Charizard.

Charizard was not his first Pokemon- but still was his favorite. Of course he wouldn't ever admit that openly to his first Pokemon, Eevee, which was now a Vaporeon. One reason was simply its color of course- it was a rare black Charmander which he had found off the coast of the Kanto region many years ago. And the moment that he had seen the color of its coat- he had know that he wanted it for himself.

He couldn't help but think about the other odd Pokemon he had seen today- that one that that child Ash Ketchum had. And he really was a child- His Majesty had assumed that people had exaggerated about Ash's young age, but no, he seemed no older than eleven! And if even half of what he had heard about him was true, well then, that would still mean that the boy had accomplished much for such a tender age.

Truth be told, he felt very bad about having imprisoned Ash. It wasn't something he had wanted to do, but he had known that eventually Ash Ketchum would have to be dealt with for the good of Galea. Ash, much like the rest of the Elite Four, would probably never understand why he had done what he had along with Selena and the others. Of course, he would try to explain things to Ash once he had handled Selena, and if Ash agreed to sign an agreement that would ensure he would cause no more problems to him he would be freed or else… well, His Majesty would think of the 'or else' part when it came to that.

It didn't take far too long for him to reach the southern border, which was smoldering with fires from the projectiles that Selena and her ships had launched at his forces.

His Majesty growled as even from this height, he could see the bodies of the dead floating in the sea. It didn't matter if they were from his side or Selena's- it saddened him all the same, for he knew that it was Selena's fault that those people fought his, and none of their own. It occurred to him how easily, had fate been different, he could have ended up in their shoes.

To die was a sadness, and to kill was a sin, he reflected as he descended. It appeared that all of his forces had been decimated, despite putting up a brave last stand. Thankfully though the majority of them had had enough sense to retreat rather than to start fighting to the death.

Not that _she_ would care. This was all probably a game to her- and those people chess pieces to be sacrificed simply so that she could fulfill her aim of beating him.

But if it was a fight that she wanted… well, he was going to give it to her.

He landed on a hill overlooking the landscape from where he was and his Charizard were very clearly visible to anyone with eyes to see.

He saw the invaders disembark from their ships. All of them were wearing some sort of weird costume which reminded him of those old space movies that he had seen long ago… yeah, they looked like those kinds of old astronaut costumes.

But it was nearly impossible to miss her. Was she actually wearing that traditional ceremonial armor? If so, why was she dressing up her other soldiers like they were from a bad science-fiction movie?

She took off her helmet, and with good reason- that thing must have weighed several pounds and severely limited your peripheral vision.

His Majesty's fists clenched and his Charizard let out a loud roar. Yup, it was her all right. She looked exactly the same as she had all those years ago.

And it was clear that she had seen him. He waited for her to make her move. She moved away from her followers quickly enough and walked towards him.

His Majesty could almost feel the hatred and rage emanating from her as she crept towards him.

"What is the meaning of this violence?" His Majesty asked. "What are you doing? Do you want to unravel all that we have done? Your stupidity and greed has cost us the Barrier, even now I can feel it thinning and weakening. If you keep up like this Arceus will-"

"I will deal with the Barrier soon enough," she spat out.

"Well, you were never very smart, were you teacher?" His Majesty asked. "If you are truly so blinded by a desire to defeat me, your better…. well then let us begin. I challenge you to a battle!"

Selena snorted. "You challenge me? You are the Elite Four Champion you fool… you are not allowed to challenge gym leaders. Or have you forgotten? And you dare call yourself my better."

"I don't think I'm the one who's forgotten," His Majesty said. "You're the first ever Elite Four Champion… the rules don't even apply to you like they do to other people."

"But you still want to challenge me? You are going to fight against my own special rule?" she asked. "Fine then, I presume you already know what it is."

"Ah yes, an Inverse Battle," His Majesty said. "All battles with you are Inverse Battles if you want, no? Moves that are normally super effective are not effective at all and vice-versa, yes, I know, and I am ready. I have been ready for a long time."

She sent out a Skarmory. That was new… he had not seen that one before. He had sent out his Zoroark. There was no point in transforming it, so he let it out as it was.

"Feint Attack," His Majesty said with a grin. The attack landed despite Skarmory's attempts to dodge it, and it fell to the ground. "Dark is good against Steel now."

She didn't reply and sent out an Alakazam.

"Slash!" His Majesty ordered. His Zoroark clawed the opposing Alakazam and did a lot of damage, but not enough.

"Psychic!" Selena said and the attack his Zoroark. The attack was strong… but not strong enough and another Slash ended her Alakazam.

She sent out a Milotic and he switched up with his first Pokemon, his Vaporeon.

"Water Pulse!" His Majesty said. It was strong enough that it took out her Milotic in one hit.

And now Selena was getting nervous. He could see that she had not anticipated for how well he was doing.

"Ninetales, go!" Selena said.

"Nice try, but Ice Beam," His Majesty said. The attack took out her Ninetales in one hit.

"What…?" Selena said in disbelief, now clearly shocked.

"What?" His Majesty asked. "What were you expecting? That I had spent all my time just gardening and tending to my berries, or frolicking around this place? I have been training, teacher, training in the mountains where the Elite Four called home. I have abandoned my other duties so that I could train… and only train."

"All of that so you could beat me?"

"Oh, do not flatter yourself teacher, defeating you is as easy as lifting my hand," His Majesty said. "I have surpassed what you could dream of. No, I trained for a different reason… and I must profess that it never did occur to me that you would go to such lengths just to challenge me again. It was only when you brought that boy here that I was sure that you were serious."

She was shaking with anger now.

"And I suppose you managed to convince yourself that my earlier victory over you was a fluke?" His Majesty asked. "That I won that time so many years ago only because you did not have your strongest Pokemon with you? Well, I suppose you were wrong, were you not? True, you were bereft of your strongest Pokemon at that time but it would not have changed the outcome of our fight." At least, His Majesty thought so. He could never have been very sure what would've happened had Selena had her original team with her so long ago- after all he was beating her but then again he was much stronger than before.

She didn't answer now and sent out a Dragonite. It was her oldest and first Pokemon, and His Majesty remembered his days as a student about how Selena would talk about how proud she was to have a Pokemon like that by her side.

"Surf," His Majesty said. His Vaporeon unleashed the Water type move and finished off her Dragonite in a hit. "Are you forgetting your own rules? Or did you think that your Pokemon's power would negate any advantage that type gave me?"

"Go! Frosslass!" she answered, though it was clear at this point she had no hope of winning.

"Ice Beam," His Majesty countered and finished it off in a single hit yet again.

Well, it appeared that Vaporeon was actually pretty good after all, he thought to himself.

Selena's Badge drifted towards him, but that wasn't what he had come for and didn't bother claiming it. And given that he was Elite Four Champion now, he was forbidden from collecting any more Badges anyway so it would soon drift back towards Selena. But for now, its protection over Selena was gone for a moment. Selena dropped to her knees and she was shaking… oddly even. It looked like she was having some kind of a seizure. Perhaps having her entire team knocked away like leaves in a thunderstorm was too much for her. Or maybe it was the Badges- she had been Elite Four Champion for so long and absorbed so much of their energy, perhaps it was just a side effect. Or maybe it was the inevitable fact of aging, after all, the Badges did extend life to a very large extent, but His Majesty had always thought that it was stupid to think that they could extend your life forever. Sure, they could extend life to several thousand years, but he was sure that at one point, you'd either just go insane thanks to living for so long, or that some sort of irreversible neurological degeneration would lead to eventual dementia and death. All of those were theories which could explain why the former Empress of Galea was twitching in the dirt at his feet this very instant.

But His Majesty knew that there was not time for pity right now. He had thought about this moment quite a lot, and knew it was necessary to finish her. She would always be a threat- the rules didn't bind her like it did the other Elite Four members. And he very well couldn't freeze her like he had done with the other members of the Elite Four- she was too powerful for that, which also made imprisoning her like he had done with Ash impractical. She would escape someday.

And it wasn't just that. It was that he felt that if there was any justice in the universe, she deserved to die. It wasn't just for the crimes he felt she had done upon him- yes, she had said that he would amount to nothing. And yes, he had run away from home thanks to that. And yes, his parents were dead… he had come back to find that out.

But it wasn't just that. She was unnecessarily cruel- she had attempted to usurp him and lead to so many deaths. And, His Majesty couldn't help but think, those deaths that had so recently occurred were in part his fault. He hadn't been sure how strong Selena was, so before challenging her to a battle he wanted to see just how powerful she was and wanted to send a few forces to challenge her. Of course, he had swept through her easily, but he hadn't known about that earlier. If he had, he wouldn't have bothered with this whole charade of a naval battle. He would have just swept out on his Charizard and finished her himself. And he would have been here so much earlier if he hadn't spent time in making sure that Ash was imprisoned, but the thing was that once he had seen that the boy had come so close to his island, he couldn't but help try to warp him here and catch hold of him. But now he regretted that as well, if he had been here earlier several lives could have been saved. He could've captured Ash Ketchum some other day.

But now another problem had arisen- now that he was sure that she had to die, he realized that he had spent so much time in trying to convince himself as to why she should die that he had given so very little thought as to how he was going to carry it out.

Come to think of it now, it occurred to him that she may be nearly impossible to kill given how much of the Badge's energy she must have imbibed after all those millennia. Of course, if there was anyone in Galea who could do it, it would be himself, the current Elite Four Champion… but just how was he going to go about it? No weapon would be useful. His Badge was almost worthless too in that regard.

But what of his Pokemon? He nodded at his Charizard, and he could tell that his partner knew what had to be done. His Charizard stepped forward and opened its jaws.

* * *

Ash had tried everything to escape from his current predicament, and those tries had become increasingly desperate as time went on.

First of all, when all of his attempts to break the chains using his Badges had failed, he had tried breaking them manually. But given that his only tools were his arms, this failed miserably.

What he tried next was using the Badges to try and shrink his arms. He imagined them becoming thin like spaghetti. He wasn't sure if this was going to work, and it didn't for that matter.

He then remembered an old legend that he had heard of, that of Gym Leader Wang Chuks who had supposedly lived before the first Empress of Galea and was said to be able to transform into Pokemon using the Badge's energy. Mr. Jennings had said that it was probably just a rumor because he had never heard of anyone else being able to do it, but Ash decided to try and give it a go.

He closed his eyes, breathed in, and then out, and then pictured himself turning into a Pikachu, as a Pikachu was the Pokemon that he was most familiar with. He concentrated really hard until he was blue in the face. Nope, no change at all.

With that option exhausted he sighed and took out his Pokedex. It was unlikely that it had an escape plan in there but maybe he could find something…

Oh yeah, he remembered. Bill had taken his Pokedex after he had told him that Selena had bugged it that night before they left for Kalos and ultimately Galea. It was kind of hard for Ash to remember it given all the stuff he had to do that night and most of it, really, was a sort of haze. Maybe it had been upgraded or something.

It was in his back pocket though, and hard to get to with the chains around him, but with a little bit of stretching he managed to get it out.

There still wasn't an option to call, but there was an option to message. The only contacts though were Professor Oak, Professor Sycamore, Bill, and Gary Oak.

Ash chose Gary Oak and began typing a message,

 _Gary, I'm sorry I'm not with you guys, but I was taken and kidnapped by His Majesty, the Eighth Gym Leader. I'm not sure exactly where I'm imprisoned, but it's somewhere to the north of his island. I'm in the mountains to the north of the island. Plz send help ASAP._

He then hit send for a message to appear:

'There appears to be no signal in this area. Would you like for this message to be saved and sent when a signal can be found?'

Ash sighed. Of course. He had forgotten all about it, no telephones worked in His Majesty's island for some reason. It was probably related to that. But, in case he did manage to escape, it would be good to know that at the very least the others would know where he was, so he said that yes, he wanted it sent as soon as they got a signal.

After that he got to work on something else. He thought about grabbing one of His Poke Balls, but they were scattered so far that no matter how he tried he couldn't go far enough with the chains on him. The chains were pretty loose but prevented him from walking too far away from the platform or high enough where Pikachu or Hoopa would be tied so he could free one of them.

He then began looking around to see if there were some pebbles around. If he found one, he could try and hit the central button of one of his Poke Balls and release a Pokemon inside.

But no such luck. There wasn't anything near the prison, which Ash assumed was on purpose. He thought he might try his shoe for this purpose rather than a pebble, but all he managed to accomplish was to send it further away from him than it already was.

It was then that he slumped against the ground and watched the sun's position in the sky. He had never felt so defeated before. There was no way out of this place that he could imagine.

 _Maybe you could try doing what they did in that movie, you know?_ Hoopa said. _I think it was called_ 127 Hours _or something._

"I'm not going to cut my arm off," Ash said. "I don't even have anything that could even remotely do that."

 _Wait, that's how it ends? I didn't watch the whole thing and I just kind of assumed that he wriggled out or something. That's kind of more like_ Saw _, you know now that's a movie that I really liked. At least the first one though._

Ash had heard that there were deposits of oil beneath the ground. Maybe he could extract some using the badges and lubricate his chains? He tried, but he couldn't feel more than two feet below the ground using his Badges. He then tried helping Hoopa transform into its Unbound form using his Badges. It wasn't something that he thought was possible and for that matter didn't work either.

 _Ash! Can you hear me?_

"Of course I can hear you Hoopa," Ash said.

 _I didn't say anything,_ Hoopa said.

"Huh?" Ash asked. "Then what was that?"

 _Ah, I see you're much closer now,_ and Ash realized that the tone of this person or creature's mind was different from that of Hoopa's. It was the same voice he had heard coming from this island earlier.

"Uh, new phone who dis?" Ash said.

 _I apologize, my ability to communicate with you is severely restricted. I am Arthur._

"Wait, Arthur?" Ash asked. "Arthur of the Elite Four?"

 _What's going on?_ Hoopa asked.

"Uh, Hoopa, there's someone communicating with me," Ash said. "Could you try not talking too? It feels like a conference call with too many people and it's weird trying to talk in my head."

 _Ugh, fine. But whoever it is, I can't sense them at all. Are you sure that there's someone really trying to talk to you?_

"Yeah," Ash said.

 _Yes, I am Arthur of the Elite Four. I am currently imprisoned on top of the mountains here. I lost you for quite a while when I noticed that you had suddenly vanished from where I was communicating with you, and then I found you here…_

"Wait, were you the one who transported us here?" Ash asked.

 _No, no, I lack such power in this state. It was most probably either Selena or Phineas who did this._

"You're alive?" Ash asked.

 _Yes, all of us are, but we're imprisoned within ice. But Phineas forgot one thing when he did this to us, namely, that the sun shines on the part of the cavern I am in. Over time it has defrosted me to some extent and with the help of my Psychic type Pokemon I can occasionally look over the land and try to communicate, but these abilities are extremely intermittent._

The voice suddenly stopped coming and for ten minutes Ash was just sitting there.

 _I apologize, but like I said it is difficult to do this in this state. The others are all practically completely comatose in this state save Gregor. Thank Arceus that you're closer now than before or it would be hard to even get a word through. What I need you to do is to come here, up on top of the mountain and defreeze me and free me and the others._

"I kind of can't you see, I'm imprisoned here," Ash said.

The reply came over two minutes later. _Oh, I see. Let me see if I can get you some help._

Fifteen minutes later came another answer. _Don't worry, help is on its way._

But half an hour later and nothing had happened, until Ash heard a large roar and a shadow obscured the sun for a second as something swooped down from the sky.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. I'm probably going to try and rewrite Thombdolt's missing chapter now- it feels weird to have that gap in the story. And I'll probably also make sure to smooth out any missing pieces of the story while doing that.**


	67. VS Selena XIII

**A/N: There seems to have been a bit of confusion- as the number of chapters has suddenly increased despite there being no new material whatsoever. That's because I was a bit annoyed about the gap because a chapter was missing and I wrote it all from scratch to fill in any plot holes that may have been there.**

"Charizard!" Ash shouted in disbelief. It was his own Charizard, not the black one that His Majesty had.

 _I contacted your Pokemon,_ Arthur said.

"How'd you get through the barrier that was there?" Ash asked his Charizard.

 _The barrier's long gone, Ash. Selena broke it,_ Arthur said.

"Charizard, just get me out of here," Ash said.

Charizard opened its maw and let out a huge burst of flames at the chains. Ash turned away, trying to stay as far away as possible from the heat. Normally his Badges would've shielded him from such an attack, but for whatever reason they weren't working here.

Charizard stopped after a minute and noticed that the chain was unharmed.

"Wait, forget about that, free Hoopa," Ash said. "Hoopa can probably find a way out."

Charizard raked its claws against the net and it opened up to let Hoopa out.

 _FINALLY!_ it screamed. _It feels so good to be out of that!_

"Great, now can you get me out?" Ash asked.

Hoopa tried, but it seemed that the chains were resistant against its psychic powers.

"No problem, just send out my Greninja," Ash said.

He remembered that there was a certain tactic he had used against steel before, and it had been pretty effective.

Hoopa, as he didn't know which Poke Ball was which, sent out Ash's Fearow before Greninja came out.

"Okay, Charizard, burn the chains, and after that, Greninja, cool them immediately. Then Hoopa, try using a Ghost attack like Shadow Ball on the weakened chain," Ash said.

First Charizard let out a stream of red-hot fire. It was then that it occurred to Ash that some of the protective effects of his Badges were probably still lingering as he was able to withstand the heat much better than he thought he normally would have. That and he had always been told that their protective effects were the ones that were the most potent. He still remembered that girl's face as if it had been just yesterday when he had learned that...

Ash tried to push those thoughts away, because if he went down that path, he would be stuck on it for hours and he needed his head clear. For now.

The steel was red-hot in the middle, and now Greninja rapidly cooled it with Water Shuriken and the steel then appeared rusty.

"Great, now break it," Ash said.

That dealt with one chain, and with it loose Ash finally unrolled it from his arms.

He then stepped away from the platform and found that he could use his Badges again. As he stared at the platform and he shuddered- something told him that whatever this place was, whatever had happened here before- and something definitely had, it seemed…. _unholy_ somehow. He wasn't sure how he knew, but a tragedy had taken place here. He could feel it.

"Great, now let's fly outta here," Ash said.

 _NO! No, no, do not try to fly. Phineas' power to detect things works similar to mine, much like, ah, I do not remember what it was called when I heard of it…. echolocation? Ah, no, sonar. Yes, sonar. He was able to find you when you were on the ocean's surface because your size and shape stood out from the relative flatness of the ocean. Should you choose to fly again, once again you will be remarkably easy to find against the sky and he will just warp you towards himself yet again. Stay close to the ground- the trees and rocks and these mountains and the other Pokemon that are present will interfere to some extent with his abilities._

"And you're sure that this will stop him from catching me again?" Ash asked. He could already almost feel the cold steal of the prison wrapped around his wrists yet again as he thought of His Majesty approaching. "Wait… by Phineas you mean His Majesty? The Eighth Gym Leader?"

 _Yes, that is, or was his name. In addition, try attempting to use the Badge's powers, or the ones that you have, to try and hide yourselves. That combined with the terrain and distance should help you evade him for a while._

"Okay, um, Badges, I want you to uh- shield me from people finding me telepathically," Ash said.

 _Wait! Do not shield yourselves from my presence as well!_ Arthur cried out.

"Uh, and make sure that Arthur can still talk to us, and shield my Pokemon and Hoopa from me as well," Ash said. "Uh, thanks…."

He wasn't sure if anything happened, but a weird rainbow halo seemed to surround him and his Pokemon for a minute. He stretched his arm and noticed that the halo wasn't gone- it was still there but very faint and moved as he moved.

 _So Ash, why don't we fly outta here?_ Hoopa asked.

Ash relayed what he had heard, and he found it odd that for some reason Hoopa couldn't detect Arthur's voice, but there was little that he could do about it.

"Okay, but rather than running away, we'll have to face him sooner or later, right? So why not I just turn around to fight him?" Ash asked. It was true that last time, Phineas had simply captured him and refused a challenge, but if Ash took the initiative and attacked firs-

Ash heard some sort of weird vibrating noise which snapped him out of his train of thought, but it took him a minute to realize that Arthur was laughing. At him.

 _Fight him? From my reckoning and analysis of your forces, you would not be able to last very long against Selena… no, your odds of beating her in your current state are but eight percent. Let along Phineas. No, what you should do is head towards me, perhaps if you are close enough I can try and teleport you towards me as well. Then, you can free me and the others, and we can form a plan to deal with Phineas._

"Oh, okay," Ash said. "Thing is that there's just so much that I want to know…"

 _We can discuss it as you travel here,_ Arthur said.

"Okay guys, let's run," Ash said and then realized that there was a way faster than running. "Hey Arthur… would it be okay if I flew there on Charizard, so long as I'm just a few feet away from the ground?"

 _Giving the size and speed at which you're going I believe…_

There was a long pause here.

 _No, no, as per my calculations the odds do not justify taking such a risk. You'd be faster yes, but at the cost of you being easier to find I do not think it is worthwhile. Now please hurry, if Phineas will come he'll come on his Charizard, and it will not take long for him to reach near here. He must have set up a signal to know whereupon you left the prison, and he must be rushing towards here with speed._

* * *

Phineas looked at Selena. He raised his arm to order his Charizard to tear off her head when a strange buzzing noise filled his head and he got a vision of broken chains and a platform. It was his alarm in case the chains were ever broken.

Phineas whirled around to face towards the mountains. How? How was it possible that the child had escaped? That prison had been meant to hold Arceus himself… and granted that over a few thousand years and it having been broken once it was no longer as powerful, but still, it should have been able to hold the boy!

His Charizard looked at him intently but Phineas gave no further orders. He instead projected his mind to scan the mountains to look for the boy.

After five minutes he quickly gave up. At this distance there were numerous objects about the same size of the boy and he saw nothing of the sort in the sky. Which meant that the boy was sticking to the ground for some reason.

It was then that he felt as if ice had slid down his throat. The Elite Four! If the boy managed to reach them, even by accident, he could free them! This would not be a major problem if it weren't for the fact that they might awaken Arceus, or that the boy might learn how to do so himself.

But he glanced back at Selena and her troops. Something had to be done about them too. Decisions, decisions.

Eventually he told himself that Selena was no longer a threat- she hadn't even gotten up from the fetal position she was lying down in right now and was still trembling. He had clearly won.

Deep down, he felt as if he welcomed this opportunity to hunt the boy down, because it meant that he could delay in what he decided to do with Selena. it gave him an excuse to hurl in case ever asked as to why he didn't finish her when he had the chance- after all stopping the boy right now was a greater priority than dealing with her.

"Charizard, come, we have to move at all speed through the air back to the mountains," he said and got on his Charizard and departed, all the while sending his mind out to scan the land. There were numerous people of course and this made his job difficult, but at the moment the boy couldn't have gotten very far from the prison, and those mountains were always empty aside from the Pokemon that inhabited them. Once he got close enough, he would be able to find the boy.

On the ground, as Selena realized that His Majesty had left, she stopped shaking and pulled herself together as she got up.

Tears of desperation rolled down her eyes… she had failed. But that just meant that she had to steel herself for the last phase of her plan- her backup plan that was. She got up and moved slowly back towards her head ship.

Her people seemed to be surprised to see that she had made it back.

"Milady, are you alright? When we say that His Maj-" Jenkins began before he was cut off.

"Silence! Tell me, is the reactor ready?" she asked.

"Yes, yes it is," Jenkins said. "But-"

"Take me to it," Selena said.

Selena's mind was full of certainty- if she, the true Empress of Galea, couldn't have all of it, then well, no one would.

* * *

Ash panted as Pikachu scurried along beside him. He had been going in this direction for half an hour, and he was painfully aware of how little he had moved since then. He gasped for breath, and then started running again.

The scenery was monotonous, a river, some trees, a waterfall, a river, some trees, a waterfall, and this was repeated on a seemingly endless loop. There were several Pokemon that he saw, but all of them seemed to ignore him, or in case they did seem to want to fight him, he managed to scare them off.

 _Wait! You have to turn back!_

Ash tripped over a root at the sudden interruption and fell into the dirt. "Why?" he asked once he had gotten up.

 _It is Gregor. The others besides him are quiet, but I can feel his mind… it is slow. But he asked me if Phineas had defeated Selena and I replied in the affirmative. He has then told me that Selena would have a contingency plan for this and said that there is a ah… I believe a sort of nuclear bomb she plans to set off. She will harness its energy in order to release all the power that has been stored within her for the past millennia from the Badges, and it will be enough to cause a total collapse of Galea._

"What?" Ash said again. "Okay, first of all, why I can't I hear Gregor myself?"

 _Telepathy is not his specialty. Psychic types and telepathy, telekinesis, and teleporting are all things that fall under my area of expertise. He is a bit slow in those areas but better than the other two. Anyhow, I'm not sure how he knows this given that he's frozen, but he apparently does and you need to turn right back around and stop her. Phineas is flying your way and has, in a move of supreme idiocy, decided to spare her life for some reason and of course he won't believe anything I tell him._

"Wait, what happened to the 'you only have an eight percent chance of beating her' thing? How am I supposed to win?" Ash asked.

 _What's happening, Ash?_ Hoopa asked and Ash told him a quick version of what was going on. After that Ash waited because there was a long pause before Arthur gave him any more instructions.

 _Well, it appears that given the circumstances… it is a chance that we must gamble on. But no matter, Gregor says that all hope is not lost and you will find help when you reach there. Again, that is all that I was able to extract from his mind and what exactly that is supposed to mean is far beyond me... but anyway it appears that Gregor has something in store for you, those odds were assuming you were in your current state. As it stands, I sense certain untapped power coming from that Pokemon by your side. I know it is a Psychic type but am I wrong in assuming that this is not its true form? If so, it can be turned to a stronger form with my help and your Badges._

"Hey Hoopa, I think you're going to have to transform," Ash said. "I'll try helping you out."

Arthur then gave Ash some instructions that he didn't understand at all, something about waving the mental energy of his aura or something along those lines before Arthur gave up on trying to teach Ash and just told him to provide Hoopa with as much power as possible from his Badges.

"Uh, Badges, yeah, load up Hoopa with energy," Ash said. "As much as possible."

Hoopa began to change, and grew six arms each holding a golden hoop.

 _Great, now, I am going to attempt to transport you back to the shore,_ Arthur said. _Just know that once you're there, it will be difficult for me to communicate with you and also that I might not be very accurate and you may land a mile off here or there. Good luck, and forget about the statistics that I said. Selena is probably not in a right state of mind, and that should give you another advantage. Good luck._

And then, after that, Ash felt the world black out around him and noticed that Hoopa was also doing something as well- it was taking both Hoopa and Arthur to transport them to the shore, Ash realized.

He just hoped he'd be ready for whatever was in store for him.

* * *

"Hey, aren't we forgetting something?" Cynthia asked. "How are Ash's citizens… that feels odd to say, 'Ash's citizens' almost as if Ash is a foreign king or something… going to react to seeing us? As far as I recall Ash only told a few people about his plan. We would spread a lot of panic throughout the land going like this."

"We don't have much choice," Steven said. "But we have a bigger problem- does anyone know what Selena's minions look like? We could end up attacking the wrong people."

"Well, there'll be a lot of them and they'll probably be in uniform," Gary said.

"That isn't much to go on," Lance said. "Oh look, I think that's the city! Weird how we missed it by over twenty miles though. We should be able to find someone there, and they'll point us on our way."

What Lance didn't mention was the reason that they had gotten off of track. Without any form of leadership, it was hard to coordinate the small band to keep going in one direction. And they made sure to sound off in numbers one, two, three, four, etc. every fifteen minutes to make sure that all of them were still there.

This arose from the fact that Ash wasn't here. While no one had formally elected Ash as leader of the expedition, he was the one who knew the route the best as well as the area, and he was the one who had brought them all in once place to begin with, after all.

As such, they had no leader and were operating like an ideal democracy (or perhaps, anarchy would be a better word)- and getting almost nothing done in the course of things and so of course with so many people going whichever way they wanted, it was a complete and utter mess for the most part. This was exacerbated by the fact that not all of them had flying Pokemon capable of lifting a human's body weight and so some of them had to share while others just chose to slow everyone down by deciding to go on foot.

"So, who's going to introduce our group once we get there?" Lance asked. Truth be told, he was kind of miffed that he wasn't at the head of the group- he was kind of used to people just going along with whatever he told them to. But he knew that Steven, Cynthia, and Diantha were unlikely to humor him in that regard, even if most of the people there were Kantonese. He was as such, hoping it would be him.

"I say we send Gary," Diantha said. "He looks the least threatening out of all of us."

"Yes, well, wait- what's that supposed to mean?" Gary asked, face flushing.

"Nothing, I mean, the rest of us Champions sort of have an… air to us, I guess?" Diantha asked. "You look more like a normal person than we do. An overconfident person, maybe, but you look far more approachable than the rest of us."

"Right, okay," Gary said, seemingly pleased with this explanation, though Lance honestly thought the whole thing seemed to be an insult wrapped around in a sugary coating. "Okay, let's find the most impressive looking building and land there and demand to see whoever's in charge." He glanced around at everyone else. "Yeah, I know it isn't a brilliant plan, but hey, it's all we have. And just maybe we'll run into Brock or Misty."

The first thing that Lance noticed was that most of the city was ruined- some buildings were on fire as people milled about like ants trying to put them out. And from somewhere, he noticed that trumpets suddenly began playing.

"An alarm's been sound off!" Lance said. "They must've noticed us."

"Well, how couldn't they?" Diantha asked. "We haven't exactly made any attempts at hiding ourselves."

"I think we shouldn't try and fly over the walls then," Lance said, returning from flying over the city. "Let's gather by the gates. Gary, your idea was good, but this way it'll be more… uh, formal I guess? And I guess this is the way things are supposed to be done. Say, does anyone have a white flag? Or a lemon branch? Those are symbols for peace, right? I didn't know this would be like an actual ancient city with a huge wall around it."

"Uh, let me see," Diantha said. "A white cloth wasn't exactly high up on my priorities list, but let me ask someone if they have one."

In the end there was one guy who had brought a clean white bed sheet. It had stripes on it as well, but they cut off a part that was blank and so they had a small flag. And almost everyone had bought a few sticks so finding a big one to attach it to wasn't that hard.

"Oh, and I believe, Lance, you were asking about a lemon branch?" Cynthia asked. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's an olive branch that you're supposed to have when you're trying to parlay. Not that we have either of those on hand with us."

"Yeah," Lance said, not really listening as Blue walked up near the gates of the city and waved the flag back and forth, so that the guards could see it.

"Hey, all of you!" Gary shouted at the guards on top of the walls. "I'm a friend of Ash Ketchum's, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town! My name is Gary Oak, and we all uh, come in peace. These are all allies of Ash and your people, we've come to help with the invasion that Serena has planned."

"Uh, Gary," Diantha whispered to Gary. "Serena is someone else- Selena is the name of the person who planned this invasion."

"Ah, right, Selena's invasion," Gary said, cheeks flushed now that he had made a huge mistake in front of everyone. "Yeah, so we're friends of Ash Ketchum! So yeah, open up the gates and ah, take us to your leader! So that we can discuss how we can help fight off the invaders."

The guards gave no reaction to this that Gary could figure out the meaning of, but they did seem to be busier than before.

"Okay, that was good," Steven said. "Let's just wait for someone to come then. I think this is better than barging in- it will prevent unnecessary panic from spreading."

"Yeah," Gary said. He couldn't believe himself.

'We come in peace?' '

Take us to your leader?'

Since when did he start quoting alien movies?

Nothing happened for a good fifteen minutes when suddenly there was the sound of gears turning and the gates began to swing open.


	68. VS Selena XIV

From the gates of the city, Gary watched as ten guards walked out in two columns of five people each, and in the middle was a boy who was about Ash's and Gary's age, and was dressed in some odd orange robe on which was pinned some object that was only about as big as a button but shone very brightly.

The boy looked at the crowd gathered before him curiously. "Ah, hello, m'name's Gulliver, and Sir Ash Ketchum left me in charge with one of his Badges. I think y'all are the reinforcements he was sending?"

"Yes," Gary said. "My name is Gary Oak."

Gulliver's eyes widened. Apparently that name meant something to him. "Really? You're Gary? Ash talks a whole lot 'bout you… is it true that you once swallowed a whole bottle of soap as a part of a dare?"

Gary turned bright red as the Trainers behind him snickered. "That- that was back when we were five! And you're telling me that he told you that?"

"Oh, I'm really sorry and all- but I just kinda wanted to make sure it was really you," Gulliver said. "I mean, anyway there are way more serious things that we need to worry about. This ain't the time for joking. Anyway, how much do y'all know about what's going on?" He then paused. "Anywho, you guys shouldn't be standing outside her like this, let's get back to HQ, Misty an' Brock are there, and after I ah- debrief y'all about what's happenin' we can go and fix all of it."

"Sounds good," Gary said.

The rather odd procession than started walking into the city. All around them, people gathered to take in what must have been a very weird sight to them. Heck, Gary was sure that if all of them had walked into any city in Kanto they would've gotten a large number of funny looks. Most of the watchers were adults, but the moment that Gary, Gulliver, or another one member or their expedition looked back at them, they averted their gazes.

The kids on the other hand, were far more curious. Most of them hadn't withdrawn their Pokemon and were walking besides them, and the kids seemed to be very interested in them. Some of the people, like Lance and Cynthia, waved at the spectators, but the spectators seemed to melt away when this happened.

Gary noticed several things though. For one, he had almost seen not a single obese person in the city. Not even someone who he would consider 'just fat.' On the contrary many of the people seemed to look highly malnourished with sunken cheeks, and almost all of them had minor injuries of some sort which looked like they hadn't been treated very well. Many buildings were in ruins- and he saw one or two corpses on the streets.

It was then that he remembered all of what Ash had told him- that this place wasn't like any other in the world. And he had to agree. This looked like a picture straight out of a war zone- because, after all, he supposed that in a way, it was.

HQ was a building that was made of wood much like a traditional home you might find in Ecruteak City. It was very large and there were guards who had fanned out all over the place. Gulliver took them to a courtyard where Gary saw both Brock and Misty.

Both of them smiled upon seeing him.

But, it was then that Gulliver suddenly stopped and turned around. "I was going to wait a while to ask about this- but, where's Ash?"

"Uh, we don't know," Gary said.

Misty and Brock were both shocked. "What do you mean, you don't know?" they both chimed in.

Gary explained- in about as few words as possible, how Ash had come back to Kanto and how he'd managed to contact them and organize this expedition, and told them how they had lost all contact with him.

"Do you have any idea where he is?" Misty asked, sounding very worried.

"I'm sorry, I don't know," Gary said.

"I'm sure he'll be alright," Gulliver said, though he sounded a bit unsure. "With all of his Badges, he's practically invulnerable. He'll be fine, and I'm sure he'll catch up to us. But, the main thing that we have to do is control Selena's forces. They're goin' round the countryside terrorizing everyone. Now, we didn't have enough forces yet to stop 'em, but with you guys here it should be a peace 'o cake." He then paused. "That's how you guys say it right- piece of cake? I'm not sure if I said that correctly."

"Yeah, that's right," Gary said.

Gulliver snapped his fingers, and a few servants brought out a huge map of Galea- so large they could've wrapped Gary in it. Gary had never seen this before- only a crude drawing that Ash had made once- and the workers began placing dark blue models of soldiers at various points.

"So, the thing is, right here is where a good bulk of her forces are at," Gulliver said, pointing to a group of islands. Gary still hadn't oriented himself completely to the map and took several minutes to find where Ponyta City was. "There Wade's tryin' to hold them off, but they're getting overwhelmed pretty fast. We're going to need to send a good amount of people there if we want him to be able to defend his people right. Thing is though that at the very least he's able to do somethin' about all of this, but the rest of the map, as you can see, is just too darned big for us to do much about. There are soldiers currently camped a few miles outside of Hawthorne City, Platina City, as well as ships on our southern costs which are gonna threaten Deluge City too. Then there are some of them camping out right on the plains right there, and a small number near Sakhmet. Now thing is- all of these are reports comin' in from some time ago so they might not even be accurate- it kills that Selena went ahead and sent down our communication system. But anyways that's the deal here, so if you guys are ready, we can all split up and try to take 'em on."

Gary turned to the other members. "Hmm… how should we split up them?"

The room erupted into chaos as practically everyone began saying things about what the best course of action would be.

Gulliver looked hesitant to say anything- and it was Brock who ended up getting everyone to keep quiet for five minutes.

"Look- let's try to split all of you into groups," Brock said. Brock then began the painstaking task of listing everyone in their group, and based on what he thought their skill levels were he distributed the people there into six groups of roughly equal power. Two groups would head out to help Wade. One group would go south towards Deluge City. Another would go east to deal with some of Selena's soldiers who were camped out near the eastern coast. Another group was to head south of the city towards the fields, while the last one was going to stay in the city with Gulliver.

Misty and Brock began kitting up too. "We'll be going to look for Ash then," Brock said.

"You sure that's such a good idea?" Gulliver asked. "Where're ya gonna look anyway, for starters?"

"Near the Barrier, I guess," Misty said. "It would make sense that the transporter messed up somehow he'd end up near there. Or if he's somewhere else anyway I guess he'll find you guys or you'll find him."

"Be careful though then," Gulliver said. "There's only two of you and a… bunch of them I guess…"

"We'll be careful," Brock said. "But do send us a message, you know, somehow- by Pidgey or whatever if he does show up."

"Right," Gulliver said. "Oh- wait, I almost forgot, let me draw up the paperwork and sign it so that people know that y'all are workin' for us and not Selena. And those of you who're goin' after Wade, be careful, he seemed pretty put off by the whole situation and I'd hate it if he'd accidentally zapped you with lightning."

Interestingly, Gary noticed that Gulliver didn't write the letters of introduction himself, but were rather drawn up by scribes. Meaning either he didn't know how to write, or maybe just didn't have the time to. After they were done writing, instead of signing, Gulliver removed his Badge and pressed it against each of the papers. Where it touched them, the mark of its outline remained and shimmered with a light all on its own. Apparently this was good enough and he then handed one to each of the teams.

"So take these," Gulliver said. "Good luck- and it'd be good if you do send me reports on what's happening and all. But it might be really slow with everything down though."

* * *

The last time Ash had been transported somewhere, it had been quick and that was when His Majesty had done it.

This time though, it took about five minutes of moving through an empty void before they reached their destination.

Or, at the very least, Ash assumed that they were moving. There was absolutely nothing there- not even air as far as he could tell and so while he sort of felt he was moving in some direction there was no way to know. He knew that that was impossibly of course else he'd either asphyxiate or burst up due to the difference in pressure, but he had kind of given up trying to make sense of these things quite some time ago.

There was no light save for the soft glow that his Badges gave out which illuminated, well, essentially nothing for barely two feet all around him.

He was acutely aware of Pikachu and Hoopa right next to him, but neither of them talked throughout the brief period and it made Ash wonder if it was even possible for them to make a noise given this seemed like a vacuum much like space.

There was no warning when the journey ended- all Ash felt was hard ground as they landed somewhere where the smell of seawater immediately hit him. He rubbed his feet- he was standing on dirt somewhere, and yes- there was the coastline that he saw.

 _I think we're really far,_ Hoopa said. _I think at least a few miles away from where we should be. Those ships are over there… way over there."_

"Should we try flying then?" Ash asked. Arthur had said not to risk it back there- but the thing was that it appeared that they were kind of running out of time.

Ash was actually expecting Arthur to respond- but nothing came. Ash guessed that Arthur was probably too far away to contact him regularly- or maybe he just didn't know where they were.

"What do you think?" Ash asked.

 _Geez, Ash, really- I don't know,_ Hoopa replied. _I don't understand how that guy's psychic powers. But I don't think I can teleport us any closer- I could succeed or we could accidentally end up ten miles further from where we are now. If we fly close to the ground though, and His Majesty isn't looking for us anyway because I don't think he expects us to be here, I think the chances are low._

That was all that Ash needed given that it occurred to him that very little would matter if all of them were dead.

Charizard restricted its flight close to the ground and decided to skirt near the trees just in case it would help camouflage them better.

Ash didn't see any people in the forests- which was strange. If there weren't any people where he had been, and they weren't here either, just where were the people of this place hidden?

Pretty soon they neared the ships, and thankfully without having been warped somewhere else. There were a large number of people whom Ash recognized as Selena's soldiers gathered on the coastline. He braced himself for battle- it was unlikely that any of them could beat him, especially given that he had his Charizard and a legendary with him now, but they could stall for time.

But then Ash realized that he didn't know which ship Selena was on or where this supposed weapon was supposed to be when one of Selena's soldiers detached from their main group and ran at Ash as fast as his legs could carry him.

His uniform was a bit different from the others- meaning he was probably someone higher up than them and Ash's first reaction was to reach for a Poke Ball.

Strangely enough though, this man seemed to be happy to see Ash.

"Oh, thank Arceus you're here," the man said.

Ash then took a closer look at the other soldiers and noticed that many of them were sobbing- or were hanging their heads.

"Who're you?" Ash asked.

"You can call me Jenkins, but that's not really important," the man said. "What you need to know is that our Lady Selena has gone completely mad and is planning to destroy all of us. There's some sort of nuclear reactor that she built and using that energy she'll-"

"Yeah, I know already," Ash said. "Why are all of you standing like this?"

"Selena ordered us to stay outside and delay anyone who tried and interfered with her plan," Jenkins said.

"And you're just going to defy those orders?" Ash asked.

Jenkins looked at Ash incredulously. "Boy, do you think that any of us want to die? We all have families. Do we look like a bunch of religious fanatics to you?"

"You could've fooled me," Ash said coldly. He still remembered the events of Ponyta City and knew that even now, Selena's forces were ravaging his territories.

Jenkins took two steps back. "I, ah, apologize, uh, Lord Ash. I merely mean to say that…"

Jenkins' shoulders sagged. "We're done for. The plan is over- all of our scheming was for nothing." He then looked straight into Ash's eyes and pulled out a card from his jacket. "This is my security card and will let you get inside the ship easily. It's that one over there, and Selena will be on the lowest floor trying to set up the reactor. I don't think there's even the slightest chance you could beat her normally… which is why what you need to do is steal the rods. Selena designed the reactor herself, but I have seen the blueprints. She'll need to fit in four plutonium rods into the reactor. Go and try to steal one."

"Won't it be radioactive?" Ash asked. "How am I supposed to touch it then?"

Jenkins looked annoyed. "You have your Badges, no? They should protect you from the adverse effects of the radiation."

"Yeah, well, 'should' kind of isn't very convincing," Ash said.

"Selena herself has been handling them without protection of any sort, so I can assume that you can too," Jenkins said. "And if you choose to do not, well then, you will have bigger problems on your hands than some radiation. Like I said, take the rods, and try to flee with even one of them. Even if you cannot succeed in running away, force Selena to fight you against your special rules. You may have a chance at winning then. But I would advise flight. If she does manage to get to you though and force you into battle… well, you have my sympathies."

Jenkins looked like he was expecting Ash to just zoom off, and it was on Ash's mind as well.

But there was a part of him, a dark, nasty part, which still lingered on all that he had seen in Ponyta City. He knew that many of these men and women were responsible for that which was happening. And that small, malevolent, part of his mind didn't want to just leave them like this. It wanted to punish them- to make them suffer just as his people had suffered.

Ash took a calm, deep breath, and told himself that he'd deal with these people later. There was work to do.

The ship in question was abandoned completely, and there was nothing to stop Ash from getting in the elevator and pushing the button for what he assumed was the bottom floor.

The interior of the ship sort of reminded him of one of Team Flare's hideouts- it seemed like something that belonged in a science-fiction movie and also that most of it seemed to be just for show.

The elevator opened up to the lowermost floor. Ash could hear footsteps ring against the ground and moved as silently as was possible towards them. Hoopa and Pikachu likewise followed him.

Round a corner, he saw someone who he guessed was Selena bent over some port and fiddling with it- and she was carrying a rod about two feet in length.

Now the question was as to how Ash was going to try and retrieve it. Before he could set a plan into motion however, the figure spoke up, "I can see you. I know that you are there. Come out now and stop trying to play games with me."

Ash took a step forward and the figure turned around. Yup, it was Selena, but she was almost unrecognizable. It wasn't just that her clothes looked torn as if she had been lost in the wilderness for several weeks, it wasn't just that her hands were trembling for some reason as if she was freezing, no, the real thing that was off-putting was the expression on her face. She looked like a wild animal- ready to strike out at anything that she felt was a threat to her.

"You are very far too late," Selena said. "Goodbye, child. There is nothing you can do to stop me now." She took the rod and moved to place it into a slot which looked like it had been made specifically for it.

In a moment of desperation, Ash shot a bolt of energy at Selena using his Badges, but she deflected that. Hoopa tried to move towards Selena, but even the legendary Pokemon seemed unable to do anything against Selena.

It was as Ash had ran out of ideas that the lights dimmed and Selena's shadow shimmered and moved until it detached itself from her, and from it rose the top half of a Gengar. Before Selena knew what was happening, the Gengar grabbed the rod and took it away from her, and in a flash appeared behind Ash.

"You!" Selena screamed at the Gengar. She seemed to realize something and said, "Gregor! So this was his ultimate move?" She pointed a shaking finger at the Gengar. "So many years… they thought me mad… they all thought I was going insane… but I knew, there was something, someone, watching me all that time so very closely… there was something giving me those nightmares…."

Gengar laughed. Ash wasn't sure what to do now, but he remembered what Jenkins had told him and decided to make a beeline for the exit when Selena hit a button and the door to the elevator closed.

"That isn't going to stop me for long," Ash said and began drawing on the power of his Badges.

"I challenge you to a battle," Selena screeched behind him.

Ash frowned. There was no way he could technically deny a challenge, but the thing was that he could sure delay it for several weeks. So he drew on the power of his Badges only to feel Selena's power working against his.

"What happened boy?" Selena asked. "I thought you were brave. What kind of hero tries running away?"

Exasperated, Ash decided to turn around. It seemed that fighting his way out was his only option left.

Well, at the very least, this meant that Ash would, for the first time, be fighting with an advantage.

He ran through each of the leader's special rules through his head.

Marley's rule? That was practically useless in this situation.

Thombdolt's rule? Okay, that would be useful in that each of Selena's Pokemon would be Poisoned or given another status condition as they were sent out.

Freyja's rule? Okay, so if he lost, he could ask for a triple battle? Not very useful, but it was good to know that he'd be getting another shot at this.

Linnea's rule? He could have eight Pokemon- meaning that including his six he could add on Hoopa and Charizard to them. Or, he could take out his Roserade and replace her with Gengar. He didn't know how strong Gengar was, but he was assuming that if it belonged to an Elite Four member, than it must have been strong enough.

Wade's rule? He could negate the abilities of his Pokemon and maybe Selena's. This could be useful.

Vanessa's rule? Nope, no time for a contest. But it could be a good stalling tactic.

Thing was, that Ash wasn't sure that stalling was such a good idea. He only had one rod right now, and maybe Selena would eventually find a way to make the machine work with what she had.

So, it looked like there was no other choice but to fight her.

 **A/N: Sorry for not updating earlier- it's been over a month. And I've said this before but I think I now have begun to seriously regret actually bringing in characters from the outside. Not just Gary, but maybe also Brock and Misty. They were sort of just stuffed in because they fit in with Ash, otherwise they have little bearing on the story.**

 **That said, I'm excited that we've finally managed to reach this point in the story. We'll be wrapping up things very soon, and as always, thanks to all of you for reading!**


	69. VS Selena XV

**A/N: Thanks for the feedback. Julie Togepi, yeah, I did kind of like their stories but it occasionally seems to me that they are kind of out of place. Hall Gowrt, thanks for pointing that out, I think I've fixed it.**

 **Just want to say that over two years ago, when I started out with the idea of this fanfic, this was the end to which I had envisioned. Not to say that this is the last chapter, it's just at that point in time I had thought up of only this much. And we've come far- it's been a huge privilege writing for all you guys. Thanks for sticking by me. If anything, this story has shown me how hard it is getting your actual ideas on paper. I know there have been a lot of mistakes- many things didn't turn out as I expected them too.**

 **Anyway, we crossed 40k views on this fanfic so I thought I'd just say another thank you.**

Ash was very conflicted. At no other time in his short life had he ever felt the need to think more than now- he knew that Selena was by far the better Trainer, and he needed to strategize.

The problem was that at practically no point in his entire life had he felt himself so unable to make a coherent thought. Not even when he had accidentally smashed a window when he was five years old and his mother had asked what had happened. Not even that time he had accidentally walked into the girl's restroom. Not even that time when Serena had kissed him.

Strategize! Think! These were words his brain kept screaming at him. He dully took in the surroundings- the room was pretty big but with equipment everywhere it would seriously hamper mobility of any sort.

It did occur to him that he should stop staring around like an idiot and actually address Selena. "Well… I'm supposed to tell you about my special rules…"

Selena snorted. "Do you really believe that is necessary? I have known those rules for thousands of years." She then smiled mockingly. "But tell me O knight in shining armor, what kind of hero needs some special rule to fight a lonely old lady? You do know that you can, if you wish, waive your right to use them? Come now, fight me like a man. Fight me on equal terms."

Ash shook his head. "No way."

Selena snarled. "Really? Are you really that insecure in your own talents and abilities that you need them? Do you think you cannot beat me without them?" She then grinned maliciously. "I know quite a little bit of your life outside Galea from all the spying I have done… correct me if I am not wrong, but are you not a failure of a Trainer? You have attempted to win contest, I think they are called 'Pokemon Leagues' and yet you have been unsuccessful all this time." Ash felt his face flush at this- he hadn't been expecting Selena to know, much less talk about that. "You want to become a Pokemon Master? What did you say… 'to be the very best, like no one ever was…' Well then, what kind of Master needs a handicap? Because that is all that those rules are, a handicap for you, and should you even win with those you will spend your entire life wondering if you but could have won had you not used them. When people will tell stories of you- they will also ask themselves as to if you could have succeeded if you fought me on level ground. Tell me, are you satisfied with a simple 'what if' for the rest of your existence that you will mull about, or do you want to truly test your mettle against the Empress of Galea?"

Rage was building in Ash now. He didn't want to admit it, but ever single word that Selena had just said stung him badly- especially given that most of it was true. Everything she had just said played right into his deepest fears and he opened his mouth to say, "You know what? Y-"

He didn't get another word out as his Pikachu had suddenly bit into his ankle. It wasn't very deep, but it did hurt and snapped Ash's attention to his Pokemon.

Pikachu glared at Ash and then Ash realized what his partner was saying. It was exactly what he had been telling himself earlier- that he needed to _think_. There was no good reason for him to not use every advantage that he had. The cut on his ankle healed fairly quickly thanks to the Badges, and Ash glared at Selena and said, "Nice try, but I'm smarter than that. For now, we'll definitely be fighting using two rules: I get eight Pokemon and every single one of yours you send out is going to be Poisoned, or if it's a Poison type, is gonna get a random status condition. Also, I can negate the abilities of your Pokemon, and oh yeah, in case I lose I can challenge you to a Double or Triple battle, and you would need to win all of them."

"Don't you know how to count?" Selena asked. "Those are four rules!"

"Yeah, yeah," Ash said sheepishly. He really wished that he could talk to Arthur just once more for some advice. Arthur had said that he only had an eight percent chance of winning- but never specified if that was assuming that Ash had his special rules on his side, if Selena was using hers, or neither and he was just comparing both of their strengths. Come to think of it, he hadn't factored in Gregor's Gengar being with him anyway.

As Ash thought of a strategy though, he could only mange to come up with the idea that stalling was a good tactic given that he had more Pokemon and that Selena's Pokemon would be Poisoned. He didn't know how strong this Gengar would be- but considering it was an Elite Four member's Pokemon, he assumed that it would be strong. But given that Phineas and Selena had once already defeated the Elite Four and that Gengar was probably a new addition… oh well, he was overthinking this. There was really nothing to do except for starting the battle.

"Go! Skarmory!" Selena said.

Ash looked at the Pokemon. It was a Steel type and would normally be immune to being Poisoned, and so it instead fell to the floor, fast asleep.

This was a perfect opportunity for Ash and he sent out his Charizard and immediately had it bathe Selena's Skarmory in a torrent of flames.

Selena looked seriously pissed off and withdrew her Skarmory rather than risking further injury to it. It would still be asleep however, even inside the Poke Ball, so Ash didn't see much point in it, but he guessed that maybe Selena thought that she'd send it out again when she wouldn't be at a Type disadvantage.

She instead sent out a Milotic and it became Poisoned the moment it was sent out.

However, Ash remembered something that he had read up somewhere. Milotic had a special ability… something to do with status conditions. "I negate your MIlotic's ability," Ash said. He wasn't even sure if that was how you did it- he hadn't seen Wade do anything back during their battle so maybe all he needed to do was think it, but hey, it couldn't possibly hurt to say it aloud, right? Selena looked furious- so Ash guessed that he had done something right, even though he really didn't remember quite fully what or why it was the correct thing to do.

He then felt like kicking himself- he should have just negated the abilities of _all_ of Selena's Pokemon by default. As far as he knew, it was rare for there to be a Pokemon like Slaking who would have an ability that was a hindrance to itself.

It also occurred to him that his Charizard was not the best choice in this situation and withdrew him and sent out his Pikachu instead.

It occurred to him that this whole fight could really just end up in them switching out Pokemon solely based on Type advantage continuously forever, but Selena seemed to think that she could overcome this. "Water Pulse!"

The attack missed Pikachu by the skin of its teeth as it leaped aside and the attack tore a two feet wide crater in the wall.

"Thunderbolt!" Ash said. Wisps of electricity formed around his Pikachu and coalesced into a large beam of lightning that illuminated the area with a pale yellow light as it moved towards Selena's Milotic. Ash was pretty pleased with himself- that attack was far more powerful than any he had ever seen Pikachu do. And it was a reminder to him that no matter what Selena said he had come far and so had his Pokemon.

This warm, fuzzy feelings were soon lost as Selena's Milotic swiftly avoided the attack and then swung its tail at Pikachu, an attack that hit its mark and sent his Pikachu flying into the wall.

For a moment Ash was very afraid that Pikachu wasn't going to get up, but it managed to somehow, if only very weakly.

"Pikachu, step down," Ash said.

He then suddenly had an idea. It was a crazy, stupid idea, but at the same time it seemed so very reckless that one thing going on in his head was that if Brock and Misty were here right now, they'd say that it suited his battle style perfectly.

"Go! Roserade!" Ash said and released his Roserade.

Selena was taken aback by this development. "You do know that that is my Pokemon… or did you somehow forget about that?"

"I didn't," Ash said. "And it doesn't matter if you trained my Roserade. You gave it to me, and as per the rules that means that it is my Pokemon."

Roserade looked at Selena, and then back at Ash, then to Selena, and then to Ash, as if Roserade was watching some sort of tennis match. It was clear that Roserade had no clue what to do.

But Ash had been counting on this. If Selena had trained Roserade herself, it was highly likely she had been training Roserade with her Pokemon. And so Roserade was probably very used to fighting with Selena's Pokemon, even if it was as a training exercise, and would probably know their attack patterns.

"Hey, listen, Roserade," Ash said. "I know that you don't want to hurt your friends… but you don't have to. All I want you to do is do one thing- avoid all of their attacks. That's all you need to do, avoid them. You don't even need to fight if you don't have to."

Selena ordered Milotic to fire an Ice Beam. Ash watched the attack travel towards Roserade, who looked at the incoming ray with a deer-in-the-headlights sort of expression on its face, but at the last moment did, as a matter of fact, avoid the blow.

"Great, now hide," Ash said. He had remembered what Wade had told him once- that it was necessary to use the terrain to his advantage. Or was that Wade or someone else? Eh, anyway, it seemed like good advice and Roserade was able to fit into many nooks and crannies that Milotic wasn't able to follow, and Selena clearly didn't want to risk destroying the machine since she would be needing it to well, blow herself up.

Selena grew exasperated very quickly and withdrew her Milotic and replaced it with an Alakazam. Ash withdrew his Roserade immediately and sent out his Greninja now.

Selena frowned. It was turning out as Ash had expected- neither of them was willing to fight at a disadvantage. That battle had progressed for quite some time and not a single one of either of their Pokemon had been knocked out.

"Hey Selena," Ash said. "I bet you've lived a long time- and seen thousands of battles. But here's something I think you've never seen before."

Ash had wondered why Greninja hadn't transformed back when he had fought Wade- but he knew now. Their connection had been severed, but after all they had been through again in Galea, he had no doubt in his mind that it would work. A flash of water coiled around both him and his beloved Greninja as Greninja transformed to become more Ash-like.

Selena seemed to lose her composure for just a second. This was something she had never seen before, and it was then that it occurred to Ash that everything that Selena did was planned out well in advance- she probably knew everything about every single Pokemon she had ever seen. But seeing something she didn't understand… well, it was probably scarier for someone like her than for him.

"Miracle Eye," Selena said. Nothing happened, so Ash assumed that Selena, despite her years of experience, didn't know that Greninja was a Dark type and immune to Psychic type attacks. So he decided to strike her with a Water Shuriken.

Alakazam took several hits, but Selena then ordered it to use Psycho Cut. Ash grinned- apparently experience wasn't everything. Hadn't she learned already that Psychic attacks were useless?

But then, surprisingly, the attack hit, and given that neither Greninja nor Ash had been expecting it to, it did massive damage and Ash was forced to withdrew Greninja immediately afterwards. If he had taken the slightest evasive maneuvers, Greninja would not have been hurt as badly- but now Greninja would probably be unable to do anything significant for the rest of the fight.

Selena regained her confidence. "That was a neat trick… but a trick is all…but I have to say, no, I haven't ever seen something like that happen before… what happened to your eyes?"

 _Ash!_ Hoopa said. _Send me! Send me to deal with her Alakazam!_

Ash considered the situation and realized that he didn't exactly have any better choice and so he said, "Hoopa! I choose you!"

Hoopa entered the battlefield and Selena looked thrown again. She had never seen Hoopa before, and Ash realized that Hoopa Unbound's Psychic/Dark matchup mean that it too, would be immune to Psychic attacks like his Greninja. Now, he wasn't sure why Psycho Cut had worked, but he guessed that Miracle Eye was probably the reason why. As it was, Selena had two choice. She either assumed, based on Hoopa Unbound's appearance, that it was a Dark type and use Miracle Eye again, which would waste a turn, or she could directly attack with a Psychic move if she assumed Hoopa was _not_ a Dark type.

Either way, Ash knew that he had the advantage, at least initially, and so he used it to attack. "Hoopa! Hyperspace Fury!"

"Hyper-what?" Selena asked as Hoopa disappeared and reappeared above them and began sketching dark purple all around Alakazam and turned into a dark vortex of energy, striking it from every direction. Selena probably could've reacted to try and minimize the damage that Alakazam was taken, but much like Ash, she was probably not expecting an attack of this sort.

At the end of the assault, Alakazam toppled over. It was down for the count. Ash still had eight Pokemon, and Selena had five.

 _Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about!_ Hoopa said, grinning.

"Well, looks like the professor just got schooled," Ash said. It was a lame joke, and he knew it, but Hoopa still giggled so he supposed that meant something.

Ash had seen Selena shocked before- but never had he seen her completely dumbfounded, her mouth forming a perfect 'O' as she took in what had happened. "Well, well, when I brought you here to Galea I just took whoever happened to be nearest. You fit your purpose well enough- oh, you surprised me many times definitely, and I had to help you out along the way… but you still seem to have many surprises… I apologize for underestimating you…" Selena said. She no longer looked shocked and had a hard expression on her face- something that told Ash that the coats were off now.

Selena now sent out her Skarmory, which was still asleep, so Ash had Hoopa use another Hyperspace Fury attack. It was almost impossible to tell whether this had as much of an effect on Skarmory as it had on Alakazam, but then Skarmory woke up. Selena grinned- this was apparently what she had been gambling on.

"Hyperspace Fury!" Ash shouted again.

"Use Aerial Ace to dodge and then strike it," Selena said. Hoopa's attack missed its mark, and it found itself on the receiving end of Skarmory's Aerial Ace to its back.

 _Ow, ow, ouch!_ Hoopa screamed. Ash wasn't sure why the attack had done so much damage, but Hoopa looked like it was really hurt and so Ash told Hoopa to take a break for now.

Selena also withdrew her Skarmory. Ash didn't know whether or not it would get affected by another Status condition when she sent it out again, or if that was only a one time deal. But given that Selena had chosen to withdraw it instead of fighting with it, it was most likely that the latter was the case.

Now Ash was left wondering what he should send out, and so was Selena. They just sort of glared at each other for a couple of minutes before Ash finally caved and decided to send out his Roserade again.

Selena didn't look too happy at this and her face clearly said, 'Not this again.'

She sent out a Dragonite.

Now, Ash had seen several Dragonites before. They were not a Pokemon species that he was unfamiliar with- most of them had been friendly- but he had fought against quite a few and he knew how nasty they could be. His mind drifted back to the Orange League.

But there was something about this Dragonite that was very off. It's skin looked old and worn- it wasn't exactly a different color but it looked faded. There were strange patterns on its skin that resembled cobwebs. And its eyes- its eyes looked ancient. One look into them told Ash that if he tried to fight this Pokemon head-on, he would lose. It wouldn't even be a contest.

"Roserade! Hide!" Ash shouted. It was the only tactic that he could think of that would work in this situation. No matter how powerful that Pokemon was, it was still Poisoned, and that limited the duration that it could fight him.

"Shock Wave," Selena muttered. The attack hit- it always hit- and despite any type advantage that Roserade had Roserade was still one-shot.

"Roserade! Return!" Ash said. He still had seven Pokemon, but the thing is that he knew that this Dragonite would be a huge pain to take down. A pit of dread formed in his stomach as he thought it was probably likely that this Dragonite could take on his entire team. He had one the Orange League by a hair's breadth, after all.

But he clenched his fists and went with the choice he thought best for this situation- and sent out his Charizard again. It was a bit of an odd choice, and given that the opposing Dragonite knew some Electric moves, Charizard was at a disadvantage. But Ash had faith in his Charizard- it was one of his most reliable Pokemon.

"Charizard! Take flight!" Ash said.

"Shock Wave!" Selena shouted.

"Steel Wing and ground yourself," Ash said. Charizard's left wing began to glow with a metallic sheen, and using it stroked the ground as it flew, and the Shock Wave was conducted harmlessly to the ground. Ash remembered seeing this strategy somewhere before, but again, he couldn't for the life of him remember where.

Charizard then struck Selena's Dragonite with its Steel Wing, and the two grabbled together, each of them trying to pin the other to the ground.

"Seismic Toss!" Ash said.

Charizard tightened its grip and moved to try and seize Selena's Dragonite, but it managed to break free and shot a Water Pulse at his Charizard which Charizard only narrowly avoided.

"Flamethrower!" Ash said. From his experience, sometimes it was necessary to throw type disadvantage out the window and just attack.

Selena wasn't expecting it, and the attack hit home although it didn't do very much. The Dragonite however, now looked very, very, enraged. And if there was one constant in the universe, it was that you didn't want to meet an angry Dragonite.

Charizard however, snarled ferociously and went to try and grip Dragonite again. It turned less into a Pokemon battle and more of a wrestling match as the two Pokemon grappled with each other, each of them trying to toss the other one but neither of them gaining any ground.

"Break apart!" Selena said.

Dragonite attempted to put some distance between itself and Charizard, but that was hard as Charizard kept lunging for it, sometimes with its arms and at other times with its fangs.

"Hyper Beam!" Selena screamed.

"Get out of the way!" Ash shouted, though considering how close the two Pokemon were, this was next to impossible.

A huge beam of destruction burst out from Dragonite's mouth and struck Charizard right in the chest, flinging it back straight into the wall, where it tried to get up once, and then another time, but then slumped to the ground.

"Charizard!" Ash shouted. It was hard to believe that it had been taken down like that. His Charizard- one of his greatest bastions of defense, with which he had battled legendaries like Articuno, had been taken down? It was almost unbelievable. He sent out his Pikachu next. Pikachu was raring to go, despite having taken some tail from Milotic a while back.

Pikachu avoided Dragonite's attack's rather easily, and delivered a Thunderbolt to it that made the last one that it had let out look insignificant in comparison. Ash had never heard a Pokemon scream in such agony as the Dragonite did. And if it had been made before- it was now _absolutely livid_.

"Return," Selena said. She then sent out a Ninetales.

Ash withdrew Pikachu and sent out his Greninja again, and transformed yet again.

"How queer," Selena said. "I have never seen something like that before. I think once I have killed you, I might try and dissect your Pokemon and figure out what it is that allows it to do that."

"Yeah, well, what'll it matter when you try and blow us all to kingdom come?" Ash asked, knowing that Selena was probably just trying to demoralize him. However, Ash knew very well what would happen to all of his Pokemon if he were to lose- and that just made him want to fight on even harder.

"You have a fair point," Selena said and shrugged. "I guess nothing really matters then. But when has anything really mattered at all anyway?"

Ash chose to ignore this and instead Greninja wordlessly began advancing towards the Ninetales.

Ninetales began shooting wisps of blue flames out from each of its tails, most of which Greninja was able to expertly dodge or blow with a well placed Water Shuriken.

And after that, Ash lost all clarity of himself. It was as if in the heat of the battle, all distinction between human and Pokemon was lost.

As such, he had trouble knowing whose hands it were that threw those Water Shuriken at Selena's Ninetales with expert precision. And whose body was it that moved in the air and dodged all of Ninetales' counterattacks? And whose mouth uttered commands as they continuously hammered down on Selena's Ninetales, until after what seemed like an eternity- though it was probably only minutes- it keeled over and sprawled on the ground, motionless.

Selena was not pleased, needless to say and sent out a Frosslass. Ash's head was pumped with adrenaline- he felt like he and his Greninja could continue on forever. He felt invincible. But at the same time, he could already feel his- or Geninja's- muscles tiring. He withdrew his Greninja for now and then considered who he was going to send out now. He looked over at Gregor's Gengar, who nodded.

Ash was a bit uncertain about using Gengar- it was probably very strong, but it was someone else's Pokemon and Ash didn't know any of its moves. But, this was the last of Selena's Pokemon and it was well-rested and 'fresh' in battle so to speak, and so Ash felt that he should also send out a Pokemon that wasn't exhausted.

Gengar then stepped onto the battlefield. Ash didn't see the rod with it, so he guessed that Gengar had probably hidden it somewhere safe while Selena was distracted.

And boy, if Ash thought that Selena looked angry before, it did not compare at all at how she started at Gengar. Those eyes could burn holes through titanium.

"Shadow Ball!" Selena said.

Gengar dodged the attack without even needing a command from Ash. Now, Ash didn't know what moves Gregor's Gengar knew, but the thing was that Ash had an idea. He didn't know if it would work, but then again, that label pretty much fit _all_ of the ideas that he had had today. "Gengar! Venoshock!"

Gengar turned for a moment towards Ash and looked confused. That made Ash worry that maybe Gengar didn't know Venoshock, but the next second dark purple spikes burst from the ground beneath Frosslass and struck it hard.

"Alright!" Ash said. He had read that Venoshock was very useful against already Poisoned Pokemon- making it the perfect move for him to spam over and over again.

In response Selena withdrew her Frosslass and replaced it with her Skarmory again. Huh, now that was a good guard against Venoshock, Ash supposed.

But Skarmory was still battered though, so Ash began ordering Gengar to chuck as many Shadow Balls as he could at the Skarmory. The Skarmory took the attacks and struck back fiercely at Gengar, slashing with its sharp steel wings and claws. Gengar retaliated in kind- not even really needing Ash's instructions at it fought back.

At the end of their bout, Skarmory fell the ground, unable to fight any more, and Gengar was practically on its knees. Ash told Gengar to withdraw- it would not be fighting for much longer now.

But now he had hope- half of Selena's team was down and whoever she had left was already damaged.

But he had long since learned not to count his eggs before they hatched- Selena's Pokemon were still going to be problematic, especially her Dragonite for that matter.

Ash sent out Arcanine, and Selena sent out her Milotic. It was a mistake- but not one that Selena would given Ash any time to rectify as a single Water Pulse was all it took to defeat Ash's Arcanine.

"Go! Drapion!" Ash said and released his Drapion. Selena switched out for her Frosslass again. "Venoshock!"

Drapion released the attack, but it was a whole lot less powerful than Gengar's. Ash had neglected to train Drapion, something that he was regretting now.

"Shadow Ball!" Selena commanded.

Drapion moved so that the Shadow Ball just nicked one if its claws instead of hitting it full-on, and then unleashed yet another Venoshock. This time though, Frosslass anticipated the attack and dodged it.

The two Pokemon moved about in a furious whirlwind, but it soon became apparent that Drapion simply couldn't keep up with Frosslass. An Ice Beam then finished off Drapion- but just after that Frosslass fell to the ground as well. The Poison had taken its toll.

Selena was down to two Pokemon, and Ash still had four.

Selena took a deep breath and sent out her Milotic again as Ash sent out his Pikachu.

Ash tried to play it safe for now- while he was sure that Pikachu could probably take down Milotic, he didn't want to take the risk of him getting injured. As such, Pikachu began running around the walls with Quick Attack. It was exhausted, but running here and there was less troublesome than fighting.

Oh, but Selena tried almost every tactic she knew to get Pikachu to stand and fight. Milotic tried to coil around Pikachu but Pikachu managed to jump out of that. And aiming indiscriminately was not something that Selena wanted to do as it would harm the machine. So, instead she tried goading Ash into attacking, and said several hurtful things… which Ash did his best to ignore.

Finally she gave up and switched out for her Dragonite. And the thing was that its expression and Selena's matched up perfectly.

Ash gulped. What was the best thing to do? Should he attack, or just keep Pikachu running like it had been?

"Shock Wave!" Selena ordered.

Well, that settled it. Stalling was likely not going to be a feasible strategy as Ash watched Pikachu endure the attack and tumble to the ground, only to get back up again.

"Pikachu! Iron Tail!" Ash ordered. Pikachu got up, ran up a wall and then pushed back against it to flip in the air as its tail started to glow silver.

"Flamethrower!" Selena ordered.

Both attacks hit their mark- after Pikachu smacked Selena's Dragonite across its face using its tail, Dragonite released a stream of flames at Pikachu.

Dragonite remained standing. Pikachu didn't. Ash walked over to this Pikachu and picked him up gently. "That's alright little buddy, you did your best."

 _Send me out again!_ Hoopa said.

Ash had to admit that it was a tempting idea, and so he decided to go with it.

Dragonite was panting heavily, but something told Ash that it could still take a whole lot more before it would be defeated.

"Hyper Beam!" Selena shouted.

Ash thought that was a bit of a dumb move- given that Selena didn't know Hoopa's type and could only guess based on appearance, well, Hoopa could very well be a Ghost type and that attack would be useless. "Protect."

The attack, though powerful, did nothing to Hoopa following which Hoopa disappeared into one of its rings.

For a full minute it didn't reappear and Dragonite was frantically looking around, waiting for a sound or even the slightest appearance of Hoopa. Then, suddenly, Hoopa appeared out from beneath Dragonite- the last direction it wouldn't expected, Ash guessed, and then struck it with Hyperspace Fury.

Somehow though, Dragonite not only endured the attack, but grabbed Hoopa and then used a Headbutt on it.

 _Ow! What's that thing's skull made up of- steel or somethin'?_ Hoopa said.

Hoopa got out of Dragonite's grip, and it then backed away a few paces.

"Thunderbolt!" Selena said.

"Protect," Ash answered.

After that, Hoopa disappeared again, and this time struck Dragonite from the back. Dragonite tried to grab Hoopa, but it was able to avoid its grip this time.

Dragonite glared at Hoopa- and then all of a sudden fell to the ground, now unable to move.

"NO!" Selena's scream echoed around the room. She withdrew her Dragonite and sent out her Milotic.

But by now, it was all but certain that Ash had won. Hoopa took a Water Pulse to the face and got knocked out, and Ash switched with Gengar.

The two Pokemon kept trying to strike each other, but were largely failing, and then Ash went on the defensive and decided to just wait until Milotic would eventually succumb to its Status condition.

"If something can't go on forever, it won't," Ash said to himself as he saw Milotic tire and then finally collapse.

Selena's Badge floated over to Ash and he grabbed it.

"Badges, heal my Pokemon," was his first command as relief washed over him.

He had done it. He had won.

But then- there was that small voice in his head. He still had Pokemon left. And it begged the question, a question that Ash didn't want to ask himself but felt compelled to, strangely enough.

Could he still have won in this battle without using his special rules?

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! This was supposed to be a climactic battle so I waxed a bit more over this than I normally would have. I (hope) no errors creeped in.**


	70. VS Four Heavenly Kings I

**A/N: I fixed the problem with Selena's Pokemon, she does only have six. Thanks for the support guys- we just reached 70 chapters! If I'd have stuck to a nine chapter format per Gym Leader, well then the story would have only two more chapters in this fanfic before it would all be over. Of course, we've kind of broken away from tradition here from Selena's arc and will continue to do so.**

Ash had five Badges now. Which was one Badge too much for him. But he would have to think about what he'd do with Selena's Badge later. Now that it had come up he realized that he had no idea what it was called, it was in the shape of a small crimson feather and like all the other Badges shone with an arcane, pearly light from deep within.

All that he wanted to do now was to go to sleep. He was just so tired… and even the ground seemed like a nice place to nod off for several hours or days right now.

But he snapped himself out of that. He had things to do. As a matter of fact, the more he thought about it, he realized that he had actually made very little headway in solving his problems. There were still a large number of things to be sorted out.

"What do we do with Selena?" Ash wondered out loud. She was just staring blankly at the floor- she hadn't made any threatening moves or anything, but Ash was still worried that she could be dangerous.

Gregor's Gengar's head grew bigger until its head was round and it drew a finger across the neck of this head with its hand.

"We can't kill her!" Ash said.

 _I think you're right about that, we actually physically probably can't, I'm getting crazy vibes from her- the same I get from those Badges of yours,_ Hoopa said.

"Hoopa- could you trap her in some sort of- I don't know, dimensional prison or something? You managed to take a castle away once, right?" Ash asked.

 _Hmm… I don't know. If she starts fighting it, I might not be able to do it,_ Hoopa said.

"Yeah, and if she does fight it, I won't be able to use the Badge's powers against her anymore- I have too many of them," Ash said.

In response to this Gregor's Gengar walked up to Selena. Ash was afraid for a moment that it was going to kill her, but instead, its eyes glowed a deep red color and Selena collapsed to the floor. Her chest was moving- so she was alive. Ash recognized the attack now. Hypnosis. Selena was asleep.

"Come on, let's get back to Arthur and free the Elite Four," Ash said. As he left however, he realized that there was something else that he needed to do. His friends were probably wondering where he was and- oh no, he had almost completely forgotten about the people who were attacking his lands! And then there was the whole deal with Selena's minions gathered outside the ships.

"My problems never seem to end, do they…" Ash said. "Hey- Gengar, do you have some way of contacting Gregor from here?"

Gengar shook his head.

"Oh, okay then," Ash said and cast one last glance at Selena.

She was still asleep alright… but there was something wrong. Her face was contorted and she wasn't smiling. And she seemed to be shaking a little even in her sleep.

As if she was having a nightmare.

* * *

Ash rubbed his head. The excess number of Badges was making his head hurt and he had kind of taken it for granted how much better he felt having only four of them.

Ash flew on his Charizard back to Jenkins, and made sure to wave Selena's Badge around so that everyone knew that he was in charge now.

"Where's Lady Selena?" Jenkins asked.

Ash was kind of used to people kowtowing before him once he had won a Badge, but none of Selena's former soldiers did. A few of them made light bows, but most of them still looked as miserable as ever and didn't seem to want to even acknowledge his presence.

"Asleep," Ash said. "I think she's gonna be asleep for a long, long, time."

Jenkins didn't seem to understand what Ash was saying and seemed to want to know more, but then let it go. "I see."

"I need your help," Ash commanded- it was not an actual request. "You have communication devices, right? I need you to restore all communication lines back in my territories. And I want you to help me make a phone call to Ponyta City so I can tell everyone where I am. And I want you to tell all your units to get out of my land and stop terrorizing my people. And for that matter, you're all gonnna need to leave. It isn't safe here for anyone."

"Our communication devices will not function this close to the island," Jenkins said. "We must move the ships backwards a bit, away from the coast, and then you can make a phone call. But I should tell you that even if you do order our other troops to withdraw- they will most likely ignore such orders."

"Whaddya mean?" Ash asked angrily. "I've won! I have Selena's Badge now! All of you have to do what I say! That's how it's been! That's how it is! That's how it will be now!"

"Forgive me, but I was not talking of myself," Jenkins said. "I will go along with whatever you say, but the others… many of them are far too devoted to Lady Selena. Despite her minor flaws she was an administrator like no other… many of the soldiers for that matter will believe that you will have them executed anyway and will want to cause as much destruction as possible. They will not surrender."

Ash screamed at Jenkins. He couldn't believe it- the whole situation was ridiculous. "If you don't do this… I'll- I'll-"

"Pardon me again," Jenkins said. "You are free to threaten me as you wish… but that will not get many of the others to cooperate."

Ash grabbed Jenkins by his shirt collar. Ash's head was bursting with rage. This was the man mostly responsible for all those deaths he had had to endure. And he was now telling him, even after he had won, that those desecrators on his soil would still be there?

When Ash would later look back at that moment, he would have trouble recalling what it was exactly that he was about to do to Jenkins. Because before he could formulate any sort of idea, his Pikachu once again bit hard into his ankle.

"Aah!" Ash said and whipped down to look at his Pikachu.

"Pika pii pi," Pikachu said. Ash was still angry- but Ash saw something in Pikachu's eyes that he had never seen before.

Fear.

His Pikachu was afraid. Okay, that had happened before- but it was directed at _Ash_.

His Pikachu, his partner, his friend, was now scared of him.

Ash let go of Jenkins and then it occurred to him what he was doing. He then instantly felt a huge torrent of shame- if this kept up like this, he was going to end up a Gym Leader just like Selena. Yes, being angry at Jenkins was justified- but he realized that he wasn't getting mad at Jenkins for what Jenkins had done.

No, he was getting mad that he had demanded something from Jenkins and Jenkins was unable to do it, and this enraged Ash as it was apparent that Ash couldn't do anything about it. Like he was some spoiled child. Or a despot. And what had he been going to do to Jenkins anyway? Whip him? Punch him? Vaporize him? Threaten to do any one or all of the above?

And what really frightened Ash was that there was a tiny, nasty part inside of him that had enjoyed doing that. It had felt good- being able to take out his frustrations on someone who he knew couldn't retaliate. Ash tried justifying himself in his head. He was tired, after all. And it didn't help that the world was quite literally coming to an end all around him. And he had a feeling that it had something to do with the Badges- he didn't like having too many of them. They had a way of messing with your thoughts.

But even with all those considerations, he knew he couldn't excuse himself for that kind of behavior. If his mother had seen him doing something like this, she would have been horrified.

"I- I'm sorry," Ash said to Jenkins. "I- uh, lost my cool there for a second."

Jenkins fixed his clothes. "Ah, no matter, uh, Lord Ketchum. I uh, think now would be a good time to get everybody back on the ships then." He then shouted at the top of his lungs. "Everyone! Back to the ships!"

Most of the people didn't respond. "Uh, you must see, most of them are devastated and think the world's coming to an end… I apologize for their noncompliance, milord."

"Just get this done quick," Ash said, remembering that Arthur was still frozen in ice somewhere, and that His Majesty would still be looking for him. "I have other things to do, y'know."

"All right, you laggards," Jenkins shouted even louder and clapped his hands together. "You already heard my orders once- make me repeat them one more time and you can kiss all hope of seeing your families again goodbye. Now everyone! Get back on the ships! We are leaving!"

It was an empty threat, but it did produce some response from the people gathered there. They slowly shuffled themselves towards the ships. A few of them shot dirty looks at Ash- which surprised him. Man, these guys really didn't know how to take losing gracefully, did they?

Then again, most of them weren't directed at him, but rather Jenkins. A few people even spat on the ground close to Jenkins, and Jenkins began playing with his collar nervously.

"Could I perhaps ask yet another favor of you milord?" Jenkins asked. He looked worried.

"What?" Ash asked as the two of them also moved towards the ships. They were the last ones about to board.

"If you have to leave somewhere, please take me with you," Jenkins said. "My comrades-in-arms seem to see me as a traitor and will not see me kindly… left alone without your protection, I think it is quite likely that I will be killed by them."

Ash snorted. "As if. They'd never dare to hurt you if you were working for me-" Ash then stopped as he pondered that apparently that wasn't true anymore. "Do they hate you that much that they'd risk being punished by me?"

Jenkins shrugged. "I do not know. But they don't seem to look upon me kindly even though I have saved all their lives by helping you. I think at least some of them would have preferred to go down with Selena though they would not admit it to anyone but themselves…"

As Ash let Jenkins guide him through the ship, he couldn't but help but notice the high tech machinery and clean surroundings of the ship. Of course, he had been inside before in order to get to Selena, but those weren't the things on his mind then.

After a few stairways and turns the mental map that he was making of the ship in his head was nothing more than a few squiggles like a small kindergartner's drawing. He would have to trust that Jenkins could lead him out. It occurred to him that Jenkins could be leading him into a trap- but he was more than confident with his powers that he could get out of almost anything that the man could throw at him. He had taken on Selena. What were some of her officers by comparison?

He was lead to a large room filled with people who were working on computers. And the room was as big as an auditorium and there were hundreds of screens flashing with information.

It occurred to Ash that just this room probably cost far, far, more money than the villagers of a place like Vanessa's domain would earn in several lifetimes. Was this why Selena's soldiers were so loyal to her? It was clear that they were far richer- and apparently far more free to use Pokemon than most of the other citizens of Galea. If Ash hadn't know better he wouldn't have thought that the citizens of the other domains in Galea belonged to the same country as Selena's. Some were better off than the others- Linnea's and Wade's people were as a rule better off than most everyone else, but it was clear that Sleena's people had it the best in all of Galea. Well, of course he didn't know how good His Majesty's people had it given that he hadn't really seen many of them, but he highly doubted they were as well off as these people.

Come to think of it, he had always found it weird that the eight segments of Galea were so different. Their natural borders were a bit too unnatural and the people and practices were so different it was hard to believe that all the people lived on the same continent at times.

The ship began moving and Ash began observing the workers around him. A few of them cast glances in his direction before looking away quickly. Ash nearly dozed off on his feet several times before forcing himself to snap awake- and he couldn't help but impatiently tap his finger on his wrist as he thought that it was necessary to free Arthur and the others as well.

"Sir," Jenkins said, snapping him out of his thoughts. "I have contacted our troops and relayed your orders for them to retreat to Constantinople."

"Good," Ash said.

"Uh, the problem is that the majority of them have simply destroyed their communication devices and any means we have of tracking them," Jenkins said. "And as for contacting your allies, sir, this person named ah, Gulliver is unavailable but we have managed to establish contact with one of Lord Wade's telephone aides. I believe that Lord Wade will be able to talk to you in about fifteen minutes or so."

A total of an hour passed however until Wade finally showed up on a large screen. He had dark crescents under his eyes and looked ever more tired than Ash felt. But he smiled on seeing Ash though.

"Oh, good to see that they were not lying," Wade said. "I see that you are well, Ash, good to know."

Ash explained to Wade what had happened.

"You did it? You really beat Selena?" Wade asked incredulously.

"Yeah, she challenged me and I had a lot of help," Ash said. "But it was pretty close anyway. Now, what I need you to do is relay all this info to Gulliver and the others. I'm guessing that they've smashed most of their communication devices so it might be hard to get to them, but try sending the message by old-fashioned means. I don't want them to worry too much."

"It'll be done," Wade said.

"Wade," Ash said. "The whole agreement you had is over… right? So can you tell me what happened?"

"I should start at the beginning then," Wade said. "Though the story is so complex I really do not where to begin… all right then, let us start with the very beginning of things in the first place. Do you know the legend of how Galea came to be?"

Ash gave Wade a blank look.

"Well… um, you see, we were able to separate Galea from the rest of the world only because Galea is already technically separate from the rest of the world," Wade said.

"I don't get it," Ash said.

"As you know, Lord Arceus created the universe," Wade said. "And later on the earth, the land, the sea, etc. all came into being. But Galea was Lord Arceus' last creation. It was made separately from the rest of the universe, though of course it was still one earth- I-I actually must profess to not completely understand this bit myself. One thousand arms were used by Lord Arceus to make the universe as you may know, but it is said that he grew eight extra arms to make Galea. And that is why some statues show him with a thousand arms and others with a thousand and eight- but there is another reason for that. Lord Arceus created each of the segments of Galea separately. Now, there are various versions on what happened next depending on who you believe, but the one that I was always taught is that Lord Arceus created each part of Galea on a separate day. And when He was finished on the last day, he was imprisoned by people somehow… I do not know why they did so- some people say they feared Lord Arceus, or that they wanted his power. But regardless of the why- after imprisoning Him, they tore off eight of his arms. And those eight arms fell to the ground and transformed into small, bright, shining, stones. One of which I am wearing right now."

A cold drop of sweat slid down Ash's neck as the implications of what Wade was saying hit him. "You mean to say that the Badges…. that they…"

Wade nodded. "Where did you think they get their powers from? The Badges are -each and every single one of them- arms of Lord Arceus which were brutally separated from Him by the people of Galea."

A feeling of revulsion immediately came over Ash as he glanced over at his own Badges.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading everyone!**


	71. VS Four Heavenly Kings II

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys. To answer I have a dictionary here, I've checked and re-checked what Wade says and he says 'and those eight arms fell to the ground and transformed into small, bright, shining, stones. One of which I am wearing right now.' As in, he's wearing one of those eight, there are only eight Badges, no where do I see or misinterpret what I've written otherwise so maybe you read that wrong.  
**

 **Thanks Hall Gowrt and Julie Togepi, nice to know you enjoyed that little surprise.**

"Wait, wait," Ash said as his mind tried to wrap around the idea. "That's not possible. If that was true, I would've heard about it before in a story or something… somebody would've talked about it."

"It is a secret forgotten with time," Wade said. "Those who would become members of the Elite Four would be shown the moment upon their initiation along with the other tales they would be privy too. But I believe that now that is rather meaningless…"

Ash noticed that everyone else in the room had stopped what they were doing and a few of them were murmuring among themselves. It was kind of hard for them to concentrate anyway, Ash guessed, given that Wade's voice was projected all over the room.

However, sending a few angry glances at them throughout the room got them back to working and at the very least they seemed like they were trying not to listen in, but some or rather most of them were probably as shocked as Ash was.

Ash assumed that Selena must have had a separate room built in case she needed to make a private call… but at this point Ash guessed that it kind of didn't matter. Wade didn't seem to care, so Ash guessed they might as well continue like this.

"So what happens after that?" Ash asked. "I'm guessing Arceus wasn't very happy after that… and I know he breaks out because I've seen him…"

"Oh yes," Wade said. "The prison was hardly sufficient to hold Arceus for even a few minutes and he quickly broke free. And undoubtedly he was enraged but the legends go that he was then pacified somehow seeing the trembling people around him begging for forgiveness. So he did forgive them, and let them keep the power of his arms."

"Wow," Ash said. "That was pretty nice of him after what they did…"

"Oh no," Wade said. "It was hardly easy for Lord Arceus. His anger was so great that within himself, it morphed into a new Pokemon after taking a life of its own… I-I am not sure how to describe this, but Arceus essentially fragmented into two pieces- one made of rage, and the other a normal Arceus. The part of him filled with rage thankfully had very little thought of its own- I am given to believe that Arceus isolated his anger on purpose so that he could remain sane. And this large fragment of Arceus that was filled with anger was left buried beneath where the Elite Four's Headquarters are. With this deed done however, Arceus noticed that the humans had now begun fighting amongst themselves for control of the Badges and their power…"

"Not surprising after what they did," Ash said. Pikachu shook his head, as if saying, 'All you humans are the same.'

"And so he laid down the rules to who could have them- and that's how we've ended up with this system today," Wade said. "Now, that would have been all, and I believe that Arceus went to Sinnoh, but the problem arose when Selena decided to declare war on Kalos."

"Wait wasn't that the first Pokemon League Champion who did- oh yeah they're the same person," Ash said.

"In retaliation, the king of Kalos used a weapon with which he struck at Galea over and over. I am told it was a weapon of destruction like no other- capable of leveling cities thousands of miles away."

"Yeah, I've seen that," Ash said.

"Those shots were deflected using the Badges' powers," Wade said. "But the king of Kalos wasn't done yet. When he realized that nothing that he could do would directly harm Galea, he instead decided to pour all of the last of the machine's power into a different shot. This one was too large to deflect- but if it had been a destructive attack then it still would not have caused too much destruction and its descent could have been delayed for enough time to evacuate any area even if we could not deflect it… but here it was that the king of Kalos showed his cunning. Instead of aiming to destroy us, this last attack was instead aimed to bring life to the shell of Arceus that is left beneath the Elite Four's HQ. All it is is a hollow shell, but this ray would bring it to life."

"Wait… so that would kill us all, right if it's really angry?" Ash asked. "And not just us, if that part of Arceus is strong enough, couldn't it go on a huge rampage and wipe out the earth as well?"

Wade paused. "…Perhaps? I must confess that we have been far too busy wondering what was going to happen to _us_ to focus on what will happen to us to worry too much about the rest of the world. But yes, that is a possibility, though I suppose at that time the king of Kalos was so enraged by his loss that he didn't care. And so, Selena was able to delay the descent of the ray as it approached Galea… but that was it. It could be delayed, but not denied. And so it slowly crawled towards Galea, and at the time it was hoped that over the centuries a permanent solution would be found."

"I don't get that bit either," Ash said. "Why are there two Elite Four Champions- and why'd Selena leave?"

"Why did she leave?" Wade asked. "I cannot be sure as I was not alive when she did abdicate, but from what I have been told she began to become very morose after her invasion attempt failed. She attempted again, as you might know, twenty years later, but she was thwarted yet again. She seemed to just… give up after that. Now why she bothered to come back and stay as a Gym Leader is completely beyond me- it would be something that wouldn't even be allowed for an Elite Four member if it weren't for that fact that she was the first Elite Four Champion and apparently many of the rules do not restrict her… but regardless, around thirty-three years ago, Phineas came. He was an early student of Selena whom she rejected, and he had trained in hopes of beating her. I do not know whether or not he knew Selena's true identity at the time of battle, but he managed to defeat her- but he chose not to claim her Gym Badge upon learning who she was. Instead, he marched onwards towards the Elite Four HQ whereupon, as he had defeated the first Elite Four Champion, was now eligible to challenge them in a row for the title. This despite the fact that he did not have eight Gym Badges. And there, he won and crowned himself the second Elite Four Champion. Or at least he would have- technically speaking the ceremony was never complete as he realized that the ray that the king of Kalos had launched was coming dangerously close to Galea. He stopped to challenge Fredrick and after taking his Gym Badge for himself he gathered the other Gym Leaders- namely, us, and said that it was time to act decisively. And that is why we separated Galea- so that as long as time in Galea remained frozen compared to the outside world, the ray would never hit. And the moment that the Barrier goes down, Ash, Arceus will be soon awakened and will wreak havoc on us all."

"Okay, you're sort of making sense," Ash said. "So if the Barrier goes down, we all die?"

"Yes," Wade said. "Selena knew that it would happen eventually but she chose to slow it down and see if she could come up with a way to avoid sending Galea into limbo… but despite all those years she failed."

"But then what's the deal with the Elite Four and all?" Ash said.

Wade let out an exasperated sigh. "Oh, now that was a whole new conundrum in and of itself. For some reason, once Selena and Phineas realized that drastic action needed to be taken immediately the rest of the Elite Four, however, were adamant that Galea not be separated from the rest of the universe, and demanded that we all stay and that no great harm would be incurred from Arceus."

"What? Why?" Ash asked. "They just wanted to sit around and die?"

"I do not think that is what they wanted," Wade said. "I believe that since they were living above where this shell of Arceus was for so long they may have been… connected to it in a way? Perhaps they thought they knew more of Arceus than the rest of us- regardless of why they thought so they seemed to believe that they could reason with this part of Arceus. Something that both Selena and Phineas realized was impossible."

"So… are you sure that it would kill us all?" Ash asked.

"Yes," Wade said. "Do you believe that so much rage stored like that would stay silent? And more than that, although I saw very little of the Elite Four I could not help but wonder that maybe based on their reactions they believed that mankind deserved to be destroyed by Arceus."

"Really?" Ash asked. "They'd think that?"

"I-I do not know for sure, but it was what I was guessing," Wade said. "Perhaps they felt like Galeans had committed a huge sin by treating Arceus like that and it was merely our fate to be destroyed… or maybe they really were deluded enough to believe they could stop or reason with that form of Arceus. And they were not the only ones- Sir Fredrick himself also seemed to agree with them. And so Phineas was forced to defeat him and take his Badge from him."

"Wait a second," Ash said. "Didn't you say that he took it _before_ he went to crown himself Elite Four Champion? How would that make sense?"

Wade frowned and rubbed his face. "I apologize, these past few days have been very draining and not all my thoughts are in order… I may have made a mistake… yes, it makes no sense for Phineas to have taken the Badge before all of that. He must have taken it after then, when Fredrick refused to cooperate."

"But I thought the Elite Four couldn't take Badges," Ash said.

"Again, Phineas was never fully coronated, so to speak, so much like with Selena the rules apparently do not apply to him," Wade said. "And so Fredrick was gotten rid of, but the Elite Four were still very adamant against the entire plan. They began actively working against the Barrier we were casting and would have collapsed the entire thing. They had to be removed- and they were. But I do not know if Selena managed to kill them or not."

"Oh," Ash said. Of course he knew different, but there was a nagging voice in his head to tell him to keep that quiet. "And then I guess the rest is history?"

"Yes, the Barrier went up, but is now almost coming down," Wade said.

"Right," Ash said. "Hey, can you record this- can we reco- okay, thanks Jenkins, maybe we can send a copy of this to Gulliver. Anyway, yeah, could you maybe tell Gulliver this and my friends so they don't worry about where I am, 'cuz I kind of wasn't able to contact them right now."

Wade frowned. "Are you saying that you will not be able to yourself? Sir Ash, what are your- and for that matter, our plans of proceeding now?"

"Uh, right now focus on rounding up the last of Selena's minions," Ash said as he felt his head pounding. "I'll get back to you a bit later, thanks for all the info."

Ash motioned for them to disconnect the call. Wade looked like he wanted to say something but was cut off.

Ash couldn't help but think that parts of Wade's explanation didn't make much sense.

The main thing was that through his limited communication with Arthur, he knew that the Elite Four did not want all of Galea to die- they wouldn't have helped him stop Selena if that were true. And so Ash was sure that Wade was missing a part of the puzzle, and the only people who would know the truth as to why they were trying to wake up Arceus were currently frozen.

Ash began pacing around.

Should he go back and try to free the Elite Four?

It would be a huge gamble, and the thing was that if the Elite Four were wrong somehow they could end up killing everyone in Galea.

But the only real alternative was to go and try to talk things out with Phineas, but Ash's wrists shuddered at the memory of the cold chains and he discounted that immediately. He didn't know what Phineas was capable of so that course seemed too risky.

Plus, Ash thought, he did sort of owe the Elite Four. They had helped him escape, and helped him stop Selena. Surely it was only normal to return the favor?

For now though, his head felt very heavy. Any decision that needed to be made could always be made the next day, he thought.

* * *

Gary had managed to do a fine job of cleaning up around Cinnamon City.

There weren't actually any of Selena's old soldiers still hanging around the place as they seemed to have melted away at the mere sight of him and his comrades, but there was still lots of panic.

He had a talk with a nice old guy by the name of Mr. Jennings who seemed to be in charge of the area, and he had been asked to go and herd the commoners and see if they needed anything.

They were really stretched out thin though and so Gary was the only one in charge of an area over twenty square miles in size.

And while he had thought that the people in Ponyta City were downtrodden, it didn't compare with the sight that he saw here.

The peasants were absolutely terrified and the only good thing that Gary could discern was that food shipments were up and running again so that wasn't a problem.

All of them were ill-kempt and smelled like they hadn't bathed in ages, which was probably the case. Gary suspected all of them were suffering from tapeworms as most of them had to run into the bushes (they had run away from their villages and even there, he was told, there were no latrines) what seemed like every ten minutes. And they were infested with other parasites like lice and ticks as well. Most of them were completely illiterate and terrified of both him and his Pokemon.

Gary remembered what Mr. Jennings had said. "Ah, you don't need to worry about them not heeding your authority. The peasants of Galea are used to obeying whoever sends a large and threatening Pokemon their way."

In retrospect, Gary had to admit that while the man was highly affable, he was also pretty dismissive about 'the commoners.'

So all in all, it seemed that a good part of Galea had for now in Ash's absence reverted to some sort of weird form of feudalism with Gary and the others being the feudal lords.

And for some reason, he had to deal with almost everything that came up. Quite literally everything- things that he didn't even think could be part of his purview. How was he supposed to know how many plows they should have, or where the seeds needed to be planted? He knew about as much of farming as he did astrophysics.

In all the conversations he had had with Ash, he had noted that Ash had kind of forgotten to mention about all of these problems the peasants were facing. Of course Ash mentioned a few things in passing, but Gary had not imagined that it would be this bad. And why hadn't Ash done anything about it?

Gary told himself that Ash was, after all, still Ash, and hardly someone you would trust with major political reform and just maybe he had bigger things on his mind, but still…

His thought process was interrupted as a group of four men approached him. They bowed low and one of them spoke up, "Sire, there is distressing news. Some thieves have been taking from our food supply, and when we followed the tracks they appear to be of a Pokemon…"

Of course, all of them were terrified of Pokemon as none of them could use them to battle. Very few of them had any experience with using them for any other purpose as well and this was usually limited to drought Pokemon used for tilling the land.

Gary followed the men and saw the tracks for himself. They led out into the woods and the tracks had no discernible footprints, but were rather a single long line like the tail of a Pokemon.

"Some sort of huge snake," Gary said to himself. He followed the tracks- none of the others seemed to want to go with him so he dismissed them and followed the tracks for over an hour before he saw that they were joined by two pairs of human footprints.

Intrigued, Gary followed them to a small site where there was a blanket on the ground and piled on top of it was food and a number of other ornaments- some of which were of gold and silver.

Meaning that they were very valuable, especially for a Galean. And especially in these times.

So, this meant a human was involved, but Gary didn't seen any other people or Pokemon around. And surrounding the site were a huge number of footprints which all meshed up so that he couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

He supposed that the thieves would come back sooner or later for their loot and decided to have a stake out.

He climbed a nearby tree and adjusted himself so he was hidden about as well as he could have been. He didn't need to wait long as fifteen minutes later a few familiar figures walked in to the place.

"Oh, we've had a pretty good haul today, don't'cha think?" Meowth asked.

"Yes," Jessie said. "But it's too bad these people don't have much of anything, there was hardly anything worth stealing."

"And am I the only one who has some complaints about their food?" James asked. "I mean, most of the bread is sandy and there's nothing sweet around for miles. How do they eat this stuff all the time?"

"I'm assuming they got nothing else," Gary called out to them.

"The other twerp!" the three of them called out.

"I kind of forgot you guys were also here," Gary said. "Did Ash mention that- I don't remember, anyway, I see that being in a different country hasn't really changed you guys, only these people are already practically third world country ravaged after a war kind of poor so that's all even worse."

Gary sent out his Blastoise and it was clear from Team Rocket's expressions that they knew that they couldn't fight against him and were assessing their options.

And so they made a run for it.

Gary sighed. This was going to take up almost his entire day.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. And we've finally hit 100+ follows! Thank you guys so much for all your support.**


	72. VS Four Heavenly Kings III

**A/N: Thanks for all the support guys! With this chapter, we cross 200k words, and I know length isn't very important when it comes to stories like this, but it's the first fanfic to cross that benchmark. I don't think we'll cross 250k though at this point.**

 **Also, we're 72 chapters in. If I had kept the original way of writing 9 chapters for each of the eight Gym Leaders, this would've been the finale. Of course, I've deviated quite a bit from that pattern.**

Gary Oak couldn't believe just how fast Team Rocket was. Every time he came close to catching them and told himself that he finally had them, they somehow pulled out some trick like throwing dust in his eyes and managed to slip away at the last moment.

As he followed them by their tracks, he came across another mound of what were clearly stolen goods.

Something was off about it though… there were far too many gold and silver ornaments to have been from this area. Where did they get all of that?

Even stranger was the fact that he quickly found another mound, and some of the stuff here again was really valuable. He scratched his chin- did they somehow break into the royal treasury or whatever was like that around here?

Come to think of it- did this place even have a royal treasury? Gary guessed that it would make sense, but he wasn't sure.

He could have probably spent years in Galea and he still wouldn't properly understand it and how everything worked.

And this made him think about how he had dismissed all of Ash's efforts… he was probably being far too hard on Ash by blaming him for the state of all the peasants. It was certainly not entirely Ash's fault and he had probably tried everything he could.

After two hours of futile pursuit he was seriously considering just calling it a day and leaving. He had other things to attend to and the sun was coming down.

That is to say, he would have if it weren't for the fact that something caught his eyes.

The tracks that Team Rocket had left strangely enough seemed to now merge over copies of one another- meaning that they had been in this place before, and they all merged so that it was impossible for Gary to make heads or tails of them.

But that wasn't the only thing weird going on- no, it was the weird shimmering that was coming over the air from a huge tree which about as big as Gary's house back in Pallet Town. A normal person would've initially just dismissed it as a trick of the light or maybe just due to hot air currents or something.

But Gary was no normal person. He had spent almost as much time training Pokemon as he had studying the natural world under the guidance of his grandfather, and while optics was certainly not his area of expertise, he knew that there was no easy explanation for what he was seeing.

"Blastoise! Go!" Gary said as he sent out his Pokemon. He grabbed a pebble and chucked it at the shimmering area only for it to disappear mid-air.

His Blastoise pointed to the tracks and after a moment Gary understood what he was trying to tell him.

"I see," Gary said. "All of the tracks are circling around that tree…. which means that either Team Rocket's started worshiping that tree like some sort of crazy cult, or more likely, that they're hiding there and that's their HQ."

Gary grabbed another pebble and flung it as hard as he could. He didn't see where it went, and even weirder than that, he didn't hear a sound as if it hadn't even hit anything.

Most likely, Gary thought, the shimmering was because the tree didn't exist at all and this was some sort of hologram. Of course, that begged a thousand different other questions starting with how on earth did Team Rocket manage to get a holographic generator in the first place.

Rather hesitantly, he began extending his hand towards the tree. He could almost hear his grandfather speaking to him in his head- 'Gary! This isn't the time to use that! Don't put your hand near something you don't understand, you need to take your time and assess the situation here!'

Gary had to admit that his grandpa had a point, but the thing was that despite all the weird stuff that went down in Galea, he had a feeling that no one had seen something like this before.

Plus, Team Rocket had clearly been near it, so that _probably_ meant that it was safe.

Gary first of all put a hand through the shimmering air. His hand went right through, so he guessed he had been right about it being a hologram.

"Hey! Blastoise, come with me!" Gary said and then stepped forward.

He expected to see the tree and maybe Team Rocket hiding somewhere, but somehow, as he walked forward, the forest disappeared and he was standing in the middle of the desert somewhere.

He glanced around as his heavy clothes meant that he burst into perspiration almost immediately. The sun was going down- and as his Blastoise emerged and looked just as confused as Gary, Gary realized he had been wrong.

That had not been a mirage or a hologram.

No. It was a portal.

Immediately, Gary looked back, hoping that there was a way back. Thankfully, there was a small shimmering patch of air, similar to the one he had just walked through, but much, much smaller- just the size of a pocket watch hovering four feet off the ground.

Gary hoped that it would still work and walked to it, and as he did it grew bigger and bigger until thankfully, Gary managed to walk back outside.

Now that Gary and his Blastoise were back where they had started, Gary noticed that the shimmering was organized like the windows of a greenhouse- it was hard to see at first but there seemed to be multiple planes of them angled at each other.

He figured all of this had something to do with everything else going on Galea and this was not something normal.

He had seen enough and was about to turn around and leave the whole thing alone when his Blastoise suddenly turned and grabbed something- something that had come out of a different portal and that something started screaming.

It was James.

"Let me down! Let me down!" he said and then noticed Gary.

"So let me guess this straight," Gary said. "You managed to discover a network of portals, you've been using it for some time in order to steal stuff from various places, but you get caught because you wanted to look back outside and see if the coast was clear?"

James sighed. "How did you know?"

"Basic deductive reasoning," Gary said. "So, do tell me, where do all these portals go?"

"Oh, a bunch of places," James said. "If you just let me down I'll-"

"Nah, I have a better idea," Gary said. "I'll have Blastoise stick your head back in through the portal you came from, and you'll tell your friends that the coast is clear. And if you don't…"

Gary actually didn't know what it was that he would do if James disobeyed, so he left the threat hanging in the air and hoped that it would be enough.

Blastoise stuck James back in the portal so that only the part up till his shoulders was gone.

Gary didn't hear if James had said anything- then the realized that sound didn't seem to travel on its own through whatever these portals were.

Blastoise took James out and Jessie and Meowth walked out only to notice Gary.

"You liar!" Jessie screamed.

"I'm sorry- he threatened me!" James said.

Jessie and Meowth then turned and ran for a different portal as James said, "Wait! Don't leave me behind!"

"No honor among thieves," Gary muttered. "C'mon Blastoise, let's go through the one they went…"

"Wait," James said as Blastoise tucked James under its arm like a human would a parcel. "We don't where that one goes- the two of them probably went in there just because it was closest one they could find. We haven't mapped out all of them yet. It could be dangerous!"

"Well, we'll just see then," Gary said as he moved towards the small shimmering pane of air.

* * *

Ash rubbed his head.

He had woken up as refreshed as he supposed was possible after a nap given the fact he was now once again strutting one too many Badges for his own good- but the thing was that he had had a very strange dream. He had dreamed about the place where His Majesty had imprisoned him and saw himself still bound there, but this time he was surrounded by people. People who were wielding sharp stick and were continuously poking him with them- laughing at his misery and how he winced at their blows.

No matter how hard he tried otherwise, he just couldn't take his mind off that prison and the worst part was that several times he felt like he could actually feel the cold chains around his wrists. This had happened yesterday too, but he had dismissed those feelings as him just being jumpy after being captured.

But it was going on for far too long which made him wonder if those chains were cursed or something. It would make sense given the weird vibes they had kept giving him when he had been imprisoned there.

What these feelings did however were cement his conviction that going back to His Majesty to talk it out was a bad idea. So that really only left one other reasonable choice- to go back to the Elite Four and try and free them. And while this path would be fraught with its own risks, he had conferred with Hoopa (who was now out of its Unbound form as it had worn off) who agreed with him.

The problem was that he could not think of a way to go back there without His Majesty catching him.

As a matter of fact, it was kind of a miracle that His Majesty hadn't decided to leave his domain and come across the sea looking for Ash. Or maybe it was less of a miracle and more of the fact that His Majesty probably still thought that Ash was back on the island.

But it would only be a matter of time before he figured out what had happened, and then he would go out and look for Ash. So it was imperative that Ash think of something quickly.

Nothing came to mind. Hoopa was now too weak and didn't have Arthur's help to teleport Ash back. Ash tried contacting Arthur but he had no real means to and it didn't look like Arthur could at that distance anyway.

Their ship, for the moment, was docked at Constantinople and for now not much of interest was going on in the city. People were being reunited with their relatives, and while that did sort of make Ash happy, it also terrified him to think that if something wasn't done soon then this was all soon going to come to an end.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud scream.

"AGHHH!"

Something landed on deck behind Ash, who whirled around to see a Pokemon and the last person he expected to see now.

"Jessie? Meowth?" Ash asked.

Very quickly, more people popped quite literally out of the sky- Gary along with his Blastoise who was carrying James.

Gary however, managed to grab onto his Blastoise who slowed their descent with a Hydro Pump and so he landed softly.

"What're all of you doing here?" Ash asked, confused and avoiding the spray of water.

"Ash!" Gary said, looking as shocked as Ash was. "Good to see you again!" He then looked around. "Where are we?"

Jessie and Meowth seemed to not really care about the answer to that question and were more concerned about getting away as fast as possible as James moaned about them abandoning him.

Gary began running after them, but Ash merely reached for his Badges. "Bring them to me."

Jessie and Meowth immediately tripped and were dragged towards Ash as if invisible hands were tugging on them.

Ash felt a spike of pain behind his eyes at having to use the Badge's powers, but he ignored it for now. Thing was that it just wasn't about having too many Badges- now that he knew where they came from he couldn't help but feel overcome by revulsion whenever he thought about using them.

"You're near Constantinople," Ash said. "I thought you'd be somewhere else though right now. How'd you fall out of the sky?"

"Portals," Gary said, as if he expected that to explain everything. "These guys know the rest- they've been stealing a lot."

"From refugees?" Ash asked. He shook his head and glared at the three Team Rocket members. "You guys just never learn do you?"

"That wasn't it though," Gary said. "I saw heaps of gold and silver too… wherever they were going I'm guessing they went somewhere where the people were rich."

Gary then told Ash about the portal system he saw and that Jessie and James were apparently using it for some time now.

"Hmm," Ash said as an idea came to his head. "Wait… I think I'll need to ask a few people on this…"

Ash summoned Jenkins to the ship, who was apparently pretty annoyed at this and murmured something about how he had just recently seen his family again and didn't want to be disturbed at this hour- all of which Ash ignored.

"So, who are your best scientists?" Ash asked.

"In what field?" Jenkins asked.

"Uh, you know, portals, the Barrier, that sort of thing," Ash said. "Whatever they're doing, I need you to get them here right now."

Ash then left without waiting for a reply as dinner was being set up and he was feeling strangely hungry today.

Gary on the other hand, who was the only other person at the table and the only other person in the room who wasn't a server, didn't seem to be too interested in eating.

"You've got quite a selection here, Ash," Gary said as he looked at the buffet prepared for them. "Way more than for one person… and way better than what other people have…"

"Yeah," Ash said. "Apparently Selena's region is the best in all of Galea- or at least most people here think so. So, how is Galea? Crazy like I told you?"

"More like really sad," Gary said.

"Well yeah, but you've only seen the bad parts- and the bad parts at their worst at that," Ash said. "I mean, I haven't really gone around Constantinople yet, but I've heard that it's pretty nice."

"Hmm," Gary said.

"So like what's going on everywhere else?" Ash asked. "Are Brock and Misty okay?" He then yawned.

"Yes, I think everyone else including them is fine," Gary said. "And you're feeling sleepy already? Ash, it's barely seven."

"Oh, no," Ash said. "This is I just woke up two hours ago- I had a really long nap of like eighteen hours. I had a long day before that though. So, I've been trying to contact everyone but I haven't had much luck."

"Yeah," Gary said. "Thing is that most of our- wait, I mean, _your_ communication lines were destroyed when all of you must've been afraid Selena was spying on you."

"Oh," Ash said. "Who ordered for that to happen?"

"I'm told that it was you," Gary said. "Gosh, Ash, how do you not remember something like that?"

"Oh, well, see the thing is I might not have been paying attention at the time," Ash said. "And I get a weird headache almost all the time from having too many Badges."

They ate in silence- or that is to say, Gary sort of watched Ash gorge on the food there while trying to not make too much noise but kind of failing at it.

"Hey Gary," Ash said as he was finally done eating. "Would you mind doing me a favor?"

"What?" Gary asked.

"I know this is weird… but the thing is I remember our last fight," Ash said. "And there's still time I think before Jenkins manages to get everyone together. So… I was thinking, I wanted to battle you again. Just once, I mean."

"I don't exactly have a full roster," Gary said. "And we don't have too much time."

"Yeah, I know," Ash said. "But with everything going on- I'd just like a reminder that things used to be normal. It feels like I can hardly even remember everything that's happened before I came to Galea- even our fight is a bit hazy- wasn't it just Charizard and Blastoise at the end?"

"Yeah," Gary said. "Well- if you really want a fight-"

He was interrupted as a messenger came in telling the two of them that Jenkins had assembled the team of experts that Ash had wanted.

They held the meeting in a large room above deck, where Team Rocket was kept tied up. The experts were a group of half a dozen old women and men who more or less spent most of their time bickering with each other but they seemed to somewhat reach a consensus when Ash asked something. Jenkins was also there, looking surly as usual.

Team Rocket, when questioned, pretty much answered everything and Ash believed them. He could've used the Badges to force the truth from them- but given that whenever he did it made his constant headache even worse, he didn't want to go down that route.

"So where all have you been in Galea?" Ash asked. Now this was what he was interested in- was there a portal towards Phineas' domain?

Sadly, Team Rocket had no real answer to this as they had no way to know where in Galea each of the portals took them and all they had were vague descriptions of where'd they been. Ash was looking for something along the lines of 'it was a small island' but then of course realized that even if they wounded up somewhere near the coastline, they would have no real way of telling whether they were on an island or just near the coastline of the mainland.

"So then we'll have to check each of those individually," Ash said. "How many of them are there?"

"Hundreds," James said.

"If I may interject," one of the researchers said, "it would be rather dangerous to attempt to venture into any of these portals blindly. They could lead practically anywhere- and some of these locations would be hazardous- take for example, if you were to accidentally find yourself inside the sun. I do not know if the Badges would be able to protect you then. My guess is that these, ah, criminals, simply were lucky enough not to have wandered somewhere like that."

Ash scratched his head and suddenly spoke, "Wait- I have an idea. What if we were to send a transmitter into each of the portals, and then try to track its signal back to a receiver? We could attach a cord to it so if it comes back fried or crushed we know it won't work- and if we can get a signal, it means it isn't on the island. Signals don't get out from there, right?"

It was an electric moment- not just because Ash had an idea no one else had thought of, but because it was actually a good one.

And so, rather begrudgingly, Jenkins and a few other helpers followed as Ash flew back straight through the portal on Ash's Charizard. Gary was one of those people.

The equipment they had was what looked like a weird radio transmitter connected to a screen, and the transmitter looked like a walkie-talkie which had a rope thread around it.

"So, there are hundreds of these things, right?" Ash asked. "Well, let's get started then."

They went through about fifty before they had any luck. Once, the fished out a soaking wet transmitter along with some ocean water- that portal had led to somewhere beneath the ocean's surface.

They needed a new transmitter after that.

Finally, after over two hours, they managed to find one where the transmitter couldn't be found.

"So, this could either be His Majesty's island," Ash said. "Or it could maybe be somewhere outside Galea?"

"Yes," one of the researchers said.

"Okay, let me see then," Ash said. This portal in question was only three feet above the ground, so he swung up on a branch into it.

He came out two minutes later and said, "Yeah, I think this is it, I recognized the terrain off in the distance."

"Good," Gary said. "So let's go and find the others and we'll think up of a plan-"

"No," Ash said and shook his head. "Sorry, but I'll be going in there alone. I need to go right now Gary, I don't know how long this will be stable or how long it's even going to be there."

"D-don't you want Brock and Misty here?" Gary asked.

"Yeah, I'd love for them to be with me…" Ash said. "But the thing is I don't know how much longer the Barrier's gonna stay up, and- I don't want to risk anyone else. I have the feeling that whatever happens next, I'll have to deal with it myself."

"Then let me come with you," Gary said. "And doesn't someone need to stay behind to oversee whatever land you have?"

"Ah," Jenkins interjected quite eagerly. "Well, I suppose being second-in-command, I can assure you that I will keep order in your absence."

"Yeah, no," Ash said. He took Selena's Badge and handed it to Gary. "I don't even think I figured out what this is called, but Gary, I want you to have it for now. I can't keep carrying these many Badges."

"Seriously, Ash, me?" Gary asked.

"It's called the Inverse Badge," Jenkins said glumly though no one really paid him any attention.

"Yeah," Ash said. "Now listen- I might not be back for a while, so do try to keep things under wraps and tell everyone what's happened up till now. Make sure Jessie and James don't cause any more trouble- and oh yeah, I guess our battle'll have to wait for later."

"Yeah," Gary said.

Without saying anything more, Ash disappeared, leaving Gary alone.

"Oh no," Gary said. "Those villagers must be wondering where I've been all this time!"

And without explaining much more, he ran off back towards where the camp had been set up.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading guys!**


	73. VS Four Heavenly Kings IV

**A/N: Hall gowrt- I was wondering what you were talking about when I noticed that I didn't explain it like I had meant to. There was supposed to be a segment or I envisioned one with Jessie and James and with the Arbok and Weezing reuniting where they learn a bit more about that, but that didn't happen and I realize it sounds like a big deus ex machina. I might polish it over when/if I decide to fix a few things with this fanfic. Thanks to Julie Togepi as well for your review.  
**

Ash was counting on the fact that it was late- about ten at night if he was correct based on the moon's position, and that this would mean that Phineas would probably be sleeping.

The Badges certainly didn't remove one's need to sleep, so unless Phineas was a night owl that would mean that for a few hours at least, Ash would not be detected.

The portal had led him to some forested area, but the familiar hills were there off in the distance.

Ash called upon his Badges to once again shield him from anyone trying to find him- anyone save for Arthur that was. He also decided against flying once again and decided that he would make this journey on foot.

Gregor's Gengar, who had been traveling with Ash up till this point as a shadow attached to him winked at Ash but didn't say anything else. Hoopa was also trying to be discreet this time as well as it flitted through the trees, practically invisible.

With a sigh, Ash said, "Sorry buddy, but the more of us there are the more likely it's gonna be that we're gonna be caught."

"Pi pii," Pikachu moaned sadly as Ash withdrew him into a Poke Ball. "Okay, let's go!"

Ash had a vague idea of which direction they were supposed to be going in, of course, but that still meant that he had no real clue of where he was supposed to be headed.

It felt as if his senses were heightened, and he hid his Badges within his jacket extra carefully and made sure that their ethereal glow wasn't visible. For the same reason he continued to stumble in the darkness- any light source would have easily given away his position to anyone looking to find it.

He kept scanning the sky- wondering if he'd see a black shadow of Phineas' Charizard cross it.

Over the next hour, he didn't run into any people, but he did startle a large number of Pokemon, which was not something that you wanted to be doing when you were trying to go unnoticed- but try as hard as he might he kept stumbling on their habitats and they usually got very defensive but Gregor's Gengar took care of them swiftly and with little noise whenever this got to be too much.

He reached the gentle slopes of the hills- or were they mountains- eh, it didn't matter, and began walking in between the valleys of them when something hit him like a splash of cold water.

 _Ash!_

"Arthur?" Ash whispered.

 _Ah, yes. Good to see that you have returned._

"Yeah, Selena's been defeated," Ash said. "Do you know where Phineas is?" he asked anxiously.

 _After he was unable to find you, he came directly here near our headquarters, most likely assuming that no matter where you were, you would come here directly. Once he got wind that you had defeated Selena and had withdrawn, he assumed that you had left for good and flew away somewhere. He may or may not be asleep, regardless, you only have a few hours at most. How did you get onto the island undetected?_

"There were these weird portals… things," Ash said even as he continued to trudge on. He described as quickly as he possibly could the weird thing he had found by that tree.

 _Most likely those portals formed due to the Barrier breaking down and for some reason are still standing._

"You don't know exactly why?" Ash asked.

 _I would probably take several days to unravel the equations necessary to explain their existence. But thank Arceus that they were there. Please hurry, Ash, the sun will come up soon and with every minute the chances of you being caught increase. Please also correct your course slightly, you'll want to go nineteen degrees west of north for the shortest route._

All through the night, Ash continued walking with Arthur occasionally telling him to go around a nest of Pokemon or something else that would delay him. As Ash scanned the hills he couldn't help but feel his wrists shudder once again as he thought of the place where he had been imprisoned.

He wanted to ask Arthur more on what had happened, but now he was scared of making even the smallest noise as even the sound of him stepping on a twig seemed to echo as loudly as a foghorn.

He was acutely aware of every sound around him as the darkness itself seemed to be extremely oppressive, as if it was trying to choke him.

The sky began to lighten ever so slowly to his relief- but it also meant that time would be running out.

As the sun's first rays began peaking over the hills, Ash was dismayed to find that he was still quite a distance from his target destination. At this rate, he would not reach there until dawn of the next day.

 _Good, you are close enough that I can teleport you to me_.

"Oh," Ash sighed with relief and closed his eyes as the light went out all around him only to reappear standing some distance from what was the largest hill in the area. Beyond it was the ocean and unlike the others at the top Ash could make out what must have been a huge building to be discernible at even this distance.

 _You must make the rest of the journey on foot. There is an ancient ward around this place- the only way you can get in is to say the name of the current Elite Four Champion._

Ash felt the energy from whatever ward was around the foot of the hill and said, "Phineas."

He tentatively stepped forward and met no resistance.

 _Fly up now with haste, child! Once you are within these borders he cannot hope to spirit you away from either within or without it!_

Ash released his Charizard and mounted up. He rubbed his legs- walking that much had hurt and as the sun now finally showed itself Ash felt a gust of wind run past his ears as he soared up and away- a journey that would've taken him hours on foot done within minutes.

The building was impressive- it stretched on for what seemed like acres and was much bigger than even the largest coliseum that Ash had ever been in. Ns Castle could have easily fit inside the thing and left in room for much more.

It was made up of gold-tinged marble and upon it were countless gardens. No one must have been inside for several decades now and there were weeds growing all over the place and nests of wild Pokemon as well.

He avoided those nests and entered a window that led to a room filled with scrolls that were now covered with dust.

This was a bit problematic as it caused his Charizard to sneeze, drenching the delicate papers in flames.

"Ah! Extinguish!" Ash said when he finally regained his senses and grabbed one of his Badges. "Where are you Arthur?"

 _Take the door on your left and go down the staircase. After that travel to your right for perhaps a hundred paces and then go down the staircase._

It took what seemed like over an hour for Ash to get even somewhat close to where the Elite Four were, but now he had decided to release his Pikachu for some company given he was no longer at risk for being snatched away.

The rooms in the palace- headquarters, whatever it was called, were all large and usually had hordes of wild Pokemon moving through them. Ash saw no humans around, but most of the Pokemon gave him a wide birth- save for a large group of Primeape who were hanging around the gigantic dining hall who chased him for a few minutes before Pikachu shocked most of them.

The first thing that told him he was finally there was the intense cold he suddenly felt- as if he had walked into a walk-in refrigerator.

There was a large chamber ahead of him, and as Ash touched the doors he had to suddenly withdraw them as the cold was so intense it felt like touching fire. He saw that ice crystals had grown over the iron doors which were probably frozen in place, and he could now see the wisps of vapor coming from his mouth.

He told himself to calm down- after all, with the Badges the ice couldn't hurt him.

 _It may not be able to kill you, but it can certainly freeze you in place much like it has done to us. Tread lightly, or you too will end up a prisoner like we are._

Arthur's 'voice' in Ash's head was louder than ever before. "Wait- can you hear what I'm thinking?"

 _At this distance, yes. We are frozen in place directly, but the enchantment also means that we are so cold at the moment that the air around us also freezes. That is only superficial however, which your Charizard should be able to melt._

At Ash's word, Charizard opened its maw to let loose a torrent of flames at the doors, which afterwards it then opened with a gust from its wings.

The chamber inside was huge and covered completely in ice. Sunlight came from one of the windows and struck one of the four figures that was covered in ice- but the ice was so thick that whoever they were was obscured. Ash could only faintly make out the silhouettes of four figures.

But Ash barely had any time to take this in as the cold suddenly intensified. It was so bad that Ash found that it froze the moisture coming from his breath and he had suddenly grown a beard of icicles. It was so bad that the flame on Charizard's tail began to flicker and Charizard was forced to back up several spaces.

The doors froze again, and without them keeping the cold in it spread to several meters behind Ash and he slipped over the ice as he tried backing away. He would have hit his head very hard had not the Badges intervened and stopped his fall at the last second.

He slid on the ice back and away from the room as much as possible and broke off his weird beard. Pikachu similarly slid away, and Charizard was nurturing the flame on its tail.

Ash had never felt this kind of cold before, ever. Not even while fighting Regice.

"Charizard, try melting it again!" Ash said.

Charizard opened its jaws again and used another Flamethrower. It worked, to some extent but it didn't carry further than the door and Charizard couldn't keep it up forever and the moment he stopped, the ice refroze almost immediately.

"This isn't working," Ash said.

 _Use your Badges to augment your Pokemon's flame- and we will use our own energy to attempt to break free as well._

"Ready for another try, buddy?" Ash asked his Charizard who nodded, stamped his feet and glared at the ice defiantly. As if it was a personal affront to his Charizard that he couldn't melt it.

"Badges, make the fire from my Charizard hotter and melt away all the ice there, and break out the Elite Four, and uh, yeah, thanks," Ash said.

This time, a raging inferno, hotter and brighter than anything that Ash had ever seen, erupted from Charizard's mouth and as Ash was forced to look away due to how bright the flames were, he heard a loud hiss as the ice melted to water and was instantly boiled to give rise to steam.

The flames didn't peter out this time and continued deep into the room where they struck the four figures trapped within the ice.

Ash was worried about maybe burning them, but he remembered that these four probably were better protected than he was.

This continued for over two minutes before his Charizard was forced to stop. There was a crack in two of the figures, and they opened up for two men to walk out of them.

One of them was short- just a head taller than Ash with silvery hair that reminded Ash of Steven, Hoenn's Elite Four Champion. The other one was a giant of a man with rippling muscles and dark brown hair and piercing eyes.

Both of them were wearing purple robes studded with what looked like real diamonds. Both of them were covered in tiny ice crystals, and looked very cold and had beards much like Ash had had a few minutes ago, but they ignored this and turned to the other spires of ice and began cracking them open. A women with long scarlet hair and similar eyes, wearing robes like the others, walked out who Ash guessed was Emily, but he couldn't really find any similarities between her and Celera. The other was a man with jet black hair and eyes which immediately focused on Ash, or rather something that seemed to be behind Ash.

They all seemed to have trouble moving, and the moment they tried to walk they slipped and fell, though much like Ash had, they stopped as they were about to hit the floor.

Emily glared at Ash. "Who is this?"

Ash turned out the inside of his coat to reveal his Badges to her.

Ash had assumed that after so many years in ice, the Elite Four would have trouble walking around or crawling- he had heard that muscles didn't work properly if you didn't use them enough. But they seemed to have no problem sliding over the ice, so maybe it was just one of the benefits of reaping the Badges' powers.

"Excellently done," the short man said. "'Tis I, Arthur. Now, if you will pardon me, I need to be sure of all that is happening…"

Ash felt Arthur reach into his mind and go through them- like a computer would go through all of its files. He saw as Arthur went through each of his memories all the way up to his childhood with superhuman speed and was done with them in minutes.

"He could be coming here any instant," Arthur said. "We need to act swiftly if we intend to raise Lord Arceus."

"Wait, what?" Ash asked, alarmed. "Won't that kill everyone?"

Arthur stared at Ash apologetically. "I… do beg your pardon, both for breaching your privacy… but also I had assumed up till now when I was inside the reaches of your mind that you had known that that was what we were to do all along. It seems that you doubted if that were true… but no, Sir Wade did not lie to you. I had assumed you knew and agreed with us."

"I don't get it though!" Ash said. "You- you helped me stop Selena right? So why would you do that if you wanted to kill everyone?"

"Because Selena did not deserve to be the one to wipe out humanity," the large man said. "Humanity had wronged Lord Arceus so long ago." He looked at Ash's Badges with disgust. "What are those but a symbol of our sins- sins we committed against Him? We have all reaped the fruit of our ancestor's sins for too long, and it is time that judgment is passed unto us at long last. It was not Selena's place to destroy Galea- that right belongs to Him and Him alone."

"I won't let you!" Ash said and reached for a Pokeball as Pikachu growled angrily at the Elite Four and his Charizard stamped its feet and roared as loudly as it could.

But before he could act, he felt something press up against his throat. It was a Gengar's claw.

"Should we kill him?" the man with black hair asked.

"No, no," Arthur answered. "He has helped us after all, and is but a boy. Ash, Gregor's Gengar is loyal only to Gregor, and he will order it to stop you like it did with Selena. Calm down, it will be but a few moments before we are all delivered from our suffering. There is no meaning in putting up any resistance anymore."

The ice began to melt very rapidly now with all of their 'beards' gone, and the Elite Four raised their hands in unison and Ash felt their power resonate through the Badges and watched as they undid the Barrier surrounding Galea.

He wasn't sure what he should do- the Badges would have allegedly protected him from all harm, but these people also had their powers as well. Could he really challenge them? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hoopa look at him and Ash nodded, his decision made.

Gengar roared in pain as Hoopa struck him with a Shadow Ball, and then Ash's Pokemon began launching attacks at the Elite Four.

They didn't even try to protect themselves as the attacks just passed away harmlessly around them. Emily glared at Ash but she seemed more annoyed than angry and it didn't stop the others in the slightest, who seemed content to ignore Ash. Their eyes were focused on the roof as if they could see beyond it and look directly up at the sky above.

Gengar recovered from the blow, and instead of retaliating at Hoopa, it instead turned towards Ash and Ash felt the world fade around him as his Pikachu shocked Gengar and then Ash found himself lying down on the floor all of a sudden. He was so sleepy so suddenly and he wanted nothing more than to take a nap...

It was then that his Charizard walked up to him and blasted him with a Flamethrower- much like it had done so back in the days when it had been a disobedient Charmeleon.

Now, that didn't really hurt Ash but it woke him up in time enough to see Hoopa repeatedly pounding Gengar, who was having trouble fending off three attackers, one of which was a Legendary, and two others who had faced many Legendaries themselves.

"Gengar, withdraw," the dark haired man said and Gengar melted into the shadows.

But the Elite Four did not stop. And Ash glanced out a window to see what was happening.

* * *

Phineas was sleeping. It had been several long days- he had not caught more than a few minutes of shuteye ever since Selena had invaded, and with the boy seemingly having vanished he had seen no point in squatting near the Elite Four's Headquarters.

He had instead gone to be with his people, who he suspected needed the support of their Gym Leader in this tumultuous time. The damage to property was immense, though thankfully very few lives had been lost.

Once he had reassured everyone that Selena was gone, and settled out a few issues, he suddenly felt like collapsing and went into the nearest log cabin he could find and hit the hay on the nearest bed he could find.

Now, this was technically someone else's property, and by nature he was not accustomed to 'appropriating' things that belonged to his subjects like the others, but at this point he had been too tired to really care enough to go looking for whoever owned this place and ask for their permission.

He had hoped to have a long nap, but this was interrupted as his Charizard broke out of its Pokeball by itself and shook him awake.

"What happened?" Phineas asked. His Pokemon would not have woken him up unless they sensed trouble.

Charizard pointed to the window. Phineas looked outside and saw that the sky seemed to be peeling away, leaving behind a dark void in its place.

It was happening.

The Barrier was going down.

Phineas swore and burst out of the cabin, all weariness now gone. He pinched himself to be sure that this was not just a bad dream, and he saw a large pulse of pink light descend across the sky.

He mounted up on his Charizard even as he knew that it was far too late now.

The pulse of light which could have easily been mistaken for a shooting star now grew bigger and bigger as it descended towards the hills to the north. Phineas was not even a quarter of the way towards them as it landed- the King of Kalos had now succeeded in his mission, so many thousands of years after he had launched it.

Arceus was now awakened.


End file.
